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VOICES OF LIVING PROPHETS
VOICES OF
LIVING PROPHETS
A SYMPOSIUM OF PRESENT-DAY PREACHING
COMPILED BY
THOMAS BRADLEY MATHER, M.A., Tn.D.
COKESBURY PRESS NASHVILLE"
VOICES OF LIVING PBOPMETS
more than I can say. They are all busy men. Yet they
found time to send me a sermon. I owe them all a debt of
kindness. I am indebted also to the publishers of the
Christian Century Pulpit for permission to use the ser-
mon by Dr. Newton on "The Great Expectation."
I am sending this book out with the hope that men will
read it and find in it a new inspiration for the honor and
Integrity of the ministry of Jesus Christ. I hope that
these sermons will enable ministers and laymen all over the
land to see in Christianity the hope of the world, and
to agree with a recent preacher who said: "The future of
Christianity? Without it, there is no future."
THOMAS BRADLEY MATHEE.
JEFFEHSON" Cmr, MISSOTTEI.
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. THE TIMELESS QUEST 9
Gams Glenn At Jems
II. THE LIGHT BRINGER 25
James Stanley Durkee
III. CONQ.UERING ONE'S DOUBTS 43
James Gordon Gilkey
IV. THE UNHIDDEN CHEIST 59
Edwin Holt Hughes
V. THE WARFARE OF THE SPIRIT 81
Walter Russell Bowie
VI. A STUBBORN FAITH 101
Ivan Lee Holt
VII. REMEMBER JESUS CHRIST Ill
Frederick William Norwood
VIII. THE HEAVENLY VISION 128
Russell Henry Stafford
IX. THE MANY-SIDED CHRIST 137
Charles Edward Jefferson
X. THE BENEFITS OF WORSHIP 153
Samuel Parkes Cadmcm
XI. THE GREAT EXPECTATION 161
Joseph Fort Newton
XII. THE MIND OF CHRIST 175
Raymond Calkins
XIII. RELIGIOUS FAITH: PRIVILEGE OR PROBLEM?. 191
Harry Emerson Fosdick
[7]
TOICES OF MVI3STG PKOPEGETS
PAGE
XLIV. RUNNING AWAY FROM LlFE 207
Albert Wentworth Palmer
XV. KEEPING LIFE FRESH 219
Ralph Washington SocJcman
XVI. A GOOD WORD FOR JACOB 231
Francis John McConnell
XVII. THE RETURN OF SATAN 241
John Milton Moore
XVIII. ETERNAL VIGILANCE 257
James Edward Freeman
' XIX. LENGTHEN THE CORDS 278
Angle Frank Smith
XX. THE SIN OF NEUTRALITY 287
John Alexander Hutton
I
The Timeless Quest
GAIUS GLENN ATKINS
PEOFESSOE OP HOMILETICS AND SOCIOLOGY
AUBTTEN THEOLOGICAL SEMINAEY
ATJBUEN, N. Y.
GAIUS GLENN ATKINS was born in
1868 at Mount Carmel, Ind. He graduated
from Ohio State University with the degree
of A.B. He received the degree of LL.B.
from the Cincinnati Law School, and
studied at Yale Divinity School. The hon-
orary degrees of D.D. and L.H.D. have
been conferred upon him.
He was ordained in the Congregational
ministry. He has been pastor at Green-
field, Mass.; Burlington, Vt. ; Detroit,
Mich,, at two different times; Providence,
E. I. He is now Professor of Homiletics
and Sociology at Auburn Theological Semi-
nary, Auburn, N. Y.
He is a contributor to many religious
journals. He was awarded the Church
Peace Union prize for an essay on Inter-
national Peace in 1914.
During the war he was director of Foyer
du Soldat with the French Army.
He is the author of many books. Some of
his recent books are: Modern Religious
Cults and Movements, Craftsmen of the
Soul, The Making of the Christian Mind,
and The Procession of the Gods.
I
THE TIMELESS QUEST
GAITJS GLENN ATKINS
And Tie removed from thence, and digged an-
other well; and for that they strove not; and he
called the name of It Rehoboth; and he said.
For now the Lord hath made room for us, and
we shall be fruitful in the land.
GENESIS 26: 22.
THIS text is a sentence or two from an ancient story
of disputed upland pastures, nomad peoples living in
black tents, quarrelsome clans, and flocks and herds feed-
ing over the hillsides and needing, above all else, water.
It is the story of a little fighting and doubtless much more
noisy arguing over water rights, a show of valor, protest,
and competition between swarthy folk in a sunlit land,
where there was never water enough and where a well was
a thing to be bequeathed by a father to his son to be
treasured as a great possession or, if necessary, to be
fought over.
But there is a gleam through it all of something vaster.
The wells themselves were only pits to catch and hold the
wash of winter rains, hard to dig in rocky soil with poor
tools, but indispensable to life then and symbols still of
more enduring supplies for more inescapable needs. You
may read for yourselves the vivid account and what came
of it all. Let us think together of that last well, Reho-
both, which put an end to all their quarrels, and haunts
us still with the lovely suggestion of its name, the well of
THE TIMELESS QUEST
"room enough. 9 ' It is a marvelous well, that well of
"room enough," and the quest for it was already old when
the herdsmen of Isaac and Gerar strove together. The
earliest and most inevitable form which the quest took
was the quest for more land, a place in the sun.
There is in the Luxembourg galleries a picture of al-
most dramatic vividness. In the background of it are
empty space and far horizon and wash of such clear cold
light as only French artists know how to paint. A little
procession passes across the foreground, a procession of
skin-clad, long-haired men, masterful with their spears
for staves, striding alongside ox-drawn carts the very
creaking of whose wheels you can hear and the carts them-
selves loaded with rough household gear and women and
children sitting wearily upon their pitiful possessions. It
is the artist's conception of the first migrations of our
race, setting out from their grassy plain and seeking room
enough. You can see in their eyes some gleam of mystic
quest, and destiny goaded their oxen.
The land they were leaving was nearly as empty as the
lands they were seeking. They were migrating not be-
cause they were crowded in fact but because they were
pressed in spirit, subject to some strong impulse and dimly
anticipated need. We call it now land hunger ; but it was
something far more imponderable than that: it was the
first projection against the skyline of history of the de-
mand of the human spirit for more room. The migratory
procession has never ceased from that day to this. Our
humanity has always been on the trek ; we have left noth-
ing unexplored, nothing unsubdued. We have even hoisted
our flag above the unimaginable loneliness of Antarctic
snows as though in the futile possession of them we should
[12]
GAIUS GLENN ATKINS
find satisfaction for the nostalgia of our spirits for the
boundless.
I
Along with room enough in land possession we have al-
ways been driven, and are driven still, by the quest for
room enough in economic resources. The herdsmen of
Isaac and Gerar were not the first who fought over water
rights nor the last either.
We have contended for the hinterlands from which riv-
ers are drained and for the rivers themselves. We have
wanted water to drink, water for irrigation, and water
for our trade routes. In our quest for room enough we
have been after coal and iron and oil, desperately eager
for the raw materials out of which the structure of our eco-
nomic wealth is built, and by the strange coincidences of
history we are ourselves living in a time when all these
forms of competition which have been so long in action
have reached their crisis.
There is no longer anywhere unoccupied, unpossessed,
unchallenged room enough either in the ownership of land,
the possession of raw material, or sovereignty over the
trade routes of earth and air and sky. The frontiers are
gone.
I remember from my boyhood an old map which would
be now, I think, if it were in existence at all, about a
hundred years old, a map of interior America west of the
Mississippi River. It was actually, as far as that region
was concerned, a map of spaciousness and alluring empti-
ness with Indian Territory written across the larger part
of it. It has taken far less than a hundred years to turn
the emptiness of that map into states and the states them-
[13]
THE TIMELESS QUEST
selves into competitive populations. Our human tides
have been turned back against themselves, and the strife
for economic room enough, which has been the secret of
the futile fighting of our humanity, has grown more in-
tense and more tragic.
If our ears were keen enough, we might hear some
menacing echo of guns in the Far East, fighting for room
enough. It has become a tragic, futile strife between
the nations for lands already occupied, so crowded that
there is no way to make room in them for more of the
living except to kill those who are already there. And
yet by a delusion of which we cannot be cured sovereign
nations of the world to-day are persuaded that they can
find room enough by subjugating their neighbors. There
has been no time in the memory of any of us when there
was not some repercussion of guns against some horizon,
sometimes too faint to be clearly heard at all, sometimes
swelling into a tragic diapason along a thousand miles
of embattled front, fighting for room enough.
The quest has taken a still more immediate and intense
form, having now become industrial competition within,
the frontiers of the nations themselves. Great industries
are contending for markets, and their competition is only
another aspect of the old contest which was fought round
about a well in Syria. There are wanting room enough
for what twenty-three acres and a single factory can
make, room enough for the output of Gary and Youngs-
town, room enough for the enormous productive power
of the industrial civilization, and the economic status of
America to-day is shaken and impoverished by their strife.
[14]
GAIUS GLENN ATKINS
It involves individuals and groups ; the strong, the shrewd,
the far-seeing find room enough for a little while, but
there is increasingly less room anywhere for the weak
and the underprivileged. The streets of our cities are full
of men who want room enough to work in. The competi-
tions of our whole order press us toward the shadow, crowd
us out of the sun.
They do indeed for a little while lift the more success-
ful into positions of luxury, possession, power; but even
their position is unstable. Every man over fifty-five years
old, no matter how capable or well trained, knows that he
has to fight for his little region of room enough. If he
stumbles, he is crowded down; if he falls, he is trampled
over; if he is less capably trained, he is crowded out
sooner than that. The projections of all this strife for
room enough darken the stormy horizons of our inter-
national life.
II
The bitter reason of it all is that we are carrying on this
costly and often tragic competition for economic room
enough in a world whose potential economic spaciousness
is beyond the reach of the most grandiose imagination.
We have not even begun to touch our economic resources ;
there is room enough in the world to grow bread for every
hungry child ; there is stuff enough in the world to build
warm and gracious homes for everyone shivering in the
cold and labor enough to build it. There is room enough,
if we know how to use it, to take every man who has a
mind and two hands and make him a useful and contented
[15]
THE TIMELESS QUEST
part of the commonwealth, to make every loving heart
and every tender impulse part of our human treasure if
we only knew how.
Our first great trouble is that we are seeking a "well
of room enough" down the wrong road. We shall never
reach it through heartless competition or selfish monopoly
or stupid self-aggrandizement. There is never room
enough for the strong to trample, the wise to scheme, the
capable to push the weak aside, and the questing to take
no thought for any but themselves. There is not room
enough down that road: the only road down which there
is room enough is the road of wise sharing, of intelligent
cooperation, of the general assumption of the burdens
and perplexities of humanity as our common human prob-
lem and the disposal of them in the spirit of Jesus Christ.
When we shall have organized our quest for economic
room enough in his spirit, sought it in his way, and con-
ceived it with his understanding, we shall find room enough,
and not till then.
Ill
But the whole quest is in part the misdirection of what
is finest in human nature, and it is also a quest for mis-
conceived satisfactions. There is within us some sense
of a destiny for which the frontiers of time and space
are too confining, a quenchless longing for some spa-
ciousness of life and condition to satisfy our sense of kin-
ship with the unseen and eternal. And so many of our
satisfactions, when we have realized them, leave us still
unsatisfied. If a man has possession enough, he builds
[16]
GAIUS GLENH ATKINS
himself a house of twenty rooms, presently makes it forty,
and still thinks himself too crowded.
We have made the skylines of our cities grandiose with
towers whose multicolored lights say unto the stars, if the
stars can see or heed them, "We were built by folks who
want room enough ; we have taken the sky for our posses-
sion : we seek spaciousness under the stars themselves ; we
accept no frontiers as final: we are always pushing them
back and asking for more room." These towers of ours
are not built out of steel and marble, they are built out of
the aspiring passion of the human soul.
Here, too, we have defeated ourselves when there have
been all the while other regions in which there is always
room enough the only regions in which we shall find our
peace.
IV
The angel on the tower of this church looks across to
four buildings which are themselves symbolic of the re-
gions in which our quest for room enough can actually
find no frontiers, and we ourselves make our adventurous
migrations at the cost of no one else. They have walls,
but their walls are built only to shelter what in itself
acknowledges no walls. The first of them is the College
of the City of Detroit, and the towers above it have
their message. "There is always room enough," they say,
"in the kingdom of the mind. You shall reach no fron-
tiers in your quest for truth and knowledge."
The herdsmen of Isaac and Gerar thought the Syrian
stars beneath which they quarreled were lights hung in a
[17]
THE TIMELESS QUEST
ceiling so near that if you built a tall enough tower you
could storm the sky. Now the heavens have opened up
and back into unimaginable spaces ; we have made the
stars tell us the secret of their composition, we have heard
in reverence the music of their movement in their ordered
orbits, and every new telescope reveals a range beyond
the range of the already seen. There is always room
enough for the astronomer as he searches the sky. There
is room enough in the very dust beneath our feet for the
life work of a chemist, and he will leave the dust still un-
explored. There is room enough in every science for the
tireless action of a mind which finds life all too short.
There is room enough in every craft for a lifetime of labor,
discipline, and happy skill.
The second building toward which the angel looks is
the Library. And who can ever be imprisoned as long as
he has a book to read? Every book is a window or a
road or a comrade ; it is a way into history, into the poet's
singing vision. It is a road into the inexhaustible drstma
of the human spirit. If we should carry our quest for
more room into the unexhausted possibilities of our in-
tellectual life, our horizons will widen toward the stars.
The angel on the tower looks toward Symphony Hall,
and there is always more room in music. Every sym-
phony carries us out into a world of audible dream and
wonder; it enfranchises our earthborn spirits and makes
them free of harmonies and vistas and unsuspected beau-
ties. When we have heard the Unfinished Symphony a
score of times there is always in it something new of
[18]
GAIUS GLEN1ST ATKINS
tenderness or longing to vibrate in the strings of a violin
and pluck at our own heartstrings.
There is always room enough in art. The blue and
luminous horizons of every Italian picture suggest the
endless amplitude of beauty. There is room enough in
every old lined face Rembrandt has painted for all the
patience and the sorrow, the laughter and the tears of a
human soul. There is room enough in the lovely broken
fragments of classic art to indicate the frontierless coun-
try in which the artist lives and works and into which he
guides all those who love his art.
And if you grow tired of marble halls, there is room
enough in an April crocus to satisfy the hunger of winter-
bound spirits, room enough in grasses which begin to live
again in green to satisfy our own sense of kinship with
all earth-rooted life. There is room enough in sunrise
and sunset, there is room enough in the overarching
skies. There is even room enough for dreams and long-
ings in the transfigured smoke and mist which give some-
times an unearthly quality to our familiar streets. And
if there is not room enough in all such things as these, we
may be citizens of a still more spacious order. There is
always room enough in goodness. I have known many
saints first and last, uncalendared but still saints. They
have lived graciously and unselfishly and without any
renown at all. But they have always tried to be good,
they have always found room enough to be better still.
No one of us has ever reached the frontiers of kind-
ness or found the end of patience or come within sight of
the limits of the possibilities of perfection of his own
[19]
THE TIMELESS QUEST
soul. There is room enough in love, God knows, radiant,
shining, light-touched spaces. No one has ever been able
to say, "If I would, I can love no longer, because I have
come to the end of the kingdom of love and there is no
longer any room for love." No one has ever spent kind-
ness so opulently as to be able to say, "There is no need
for kindness left nor any more room in which to be kind
nor any exhausted possibilities in my own kindness."
Ah, there is room enough in the regions of the soul and
in our practice of the presence of God and in our growing
likeness to Jesus Christ for all the power of us and the
passion of us. Our fretted, embattled society will never
free itself from bitterness and the poverty and the per-
plexity of its material struggles until it carries the time-
less quest of the human soul for room enough over into
its own native land into the quest for an inner wealth of
life into friendship, into truth, into beauty, into faith,
into fellowship with the unseen and eternal. There is
always room enough there.
V
But you say: "There is not room enough for us, even in
the kingdom of the mind or spirit. Our lives are so short
that before we have begun even to understand how great
life may become we reach the end of it. Whatever other
frontiers we push back or disregard there are the final
and inexorable frontiers of death itself. That shadow
darkens all our hopes. How can you say there is room
enough when beyond all that life may offer, however
[20]
GAIUS GLEN3ST ATKINS
wisely and lovingly we live it, we see the shadow and the
dust and the dark?"
Easter is the answer to just that, the assurance of
room enough for every vision and every hope unfettered
by time and opening out upon immortal largenesses.
Easter morning lights for us the unfolded portals of the
tomb and so vanquishes the shadow cloaked from head to
foot. The Easter faith sweeps around the limitations of
our temporal lives the vastness of the eternal and says,
"There is room enough ; be brave and go on."
Room enough to love without caution or economy. We
are afraid to love sometimes because love is so tender a
thing and so subject to chance that we say, when our
affections have fastened upon some transient object and
we have lost it, "I will never let myself care so much
again." Easter tells us that we may dare to care, let our
affections take strong hold of all those with whom our
lives are interwoven and because the bonds of love will
never be broken. Easter assures us that there is room
enough for hurt lives to be healed, broken lives to be
mended, the things that get spoiled too soon to be recast.
It proclaims another chance for perplexed and beaten
men upon whose defeat the twilight of their brief lives
has so darkly fallen.
Easter does not offer immortality as an anodyne for
the stupidities and injustices of our world or relieve us
from any endeavor from trying to correct them. But I
do say that its shining roads and its blessed assurances
are what God has given us to satisfy the last passion of
our souls and deliver us from the last defeat. It is the
[21]
THE TIMELESS QUEST
witness of time enough and room enough, time enough to
lay spaciously life's foundations, for buildings which may
require an eternity for their completion. Easter offers
room enough to look beyond the foreground shadows and
the fields of transient defeat ; room enough to hope great-
ly, believe creatively, and find in all our sorrows the as-
surance that sundered lives will be reunited and broken
lives be made whole again.
Take this with you: There is room enough and time
enough. We cannot always be looking at the eternal
horizon there are too many immediate duties ; but when
you are puzzled or perplexed, when your hearts ache over
the broken and unfinished, when you cannot see a road out
through the confusions of any present time, when the
scales of God's justice do not seem to balance, then lift
your eyes to the Unseen and Eternal and let your quest-
ing passion pass in faith the unfolded portals of the
tomb and anticipate its birthright in the eternal.
There is still another life beyond the horizons of time.
Dr. Robert Freeman says :
"When men go down to the sea in ships,
J Tis not to the sea they go ;
Some isle or pole the mariner's goal,
And thither they sail through calm and gale,
When down to the sea they go.
When souls go down to the sea by ship,
And the dark ship's name is Death,
Why mourn and wail at the vanishing sail?
Though outward bound, God's world is round,
And only a ship is Death.
[22]
GA.XTJS
"When I go clown to the sea lyy ship,
And. JOeatli unfurls liei* sai! 3
"Weej> not for me, for there -will be
A. living host on another coast
Xo beckon ana cry, *AU hail T "
[281
II
The Light Bringer
JAMES STANLEY DURKEE
MIMSTEE, PLYMOUTH CHUECH
BEOOKLYKT, N. Y.
JAMES STANLEY DUKKEE was born in
1866 at Carleton, Nova Scotia. He gradu-
ated from Bates College with the degrees of
A.B. and A.M. He received the Ph.D. degree
from Boston University. The honorary degrees
of Doctor of Divinity and Doctor of Laws have
been conferred upon him.
He was ordained in the Baptist ministry.
He was pastor at Auburn, Me., and Boxbury,
Mass. He was .pastor of the South Congrega-
tional Church, Brockton, Mass. He was presi-
dent of Howard University, Washington, D, C.
He is now pastor of Plymouth Church, Brook-
lyn.
He is well known in the ministry and is a fit
successor of Henry Ward Beecher, Lyman Ab-
bott, and Newell Dwight Hillis.
He is the author of God Translated, In the
Footsteps of a Friend, In the Meadows of Mem-
ory.
He is the "Friendly Voice of the Friendly
Hour" over the radio.
II
THE LIGHT BRINGER
J. STANLEY DUBKEE
A light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory
of thy people Israel. LUKE 2 : 32.
PROF. MICHAEL PTJPIN, in his truly great book From
Immigrant to Inventor, traces the story of how he
learned to answer his boyhood question, "What is light?"
An interesting and fascinating story it is indeed. As we
read that story, we are led along over the different theories
of light as presented by the thinkers of the past. There
is the theory of the luminiferous ether, the undulatory
theory of light, and, at last, the electromagnetic theory.
Through the matchless investigations of Faraday, Max-
well, and Helmholtz, the world has been taught that
"sound is a vibration of matter and light is the vibration
of electricity." What matter and electricity are in them-
selves are subjects occupying the scientific minds of this
age. Evidently neither matter nor electricity is an en-
tity in itself, but both are phenomena of some more fun-
damental relationships in the field of energy. The source
of that fundamental energy is thus described by Professor
Pupin: "The most complete picture of a chaos is our
mental image of the non-coordinated motion of the mole-
cules and atoms of a young white-hot star. Here we find
a restless chaos of violent molecular collisions, which are
the primordial source of cosmic energy."
[27]
THE LIGHT BEIKTGER
That wonderful poem, the nineteenth Psalm, puts into
poetry a great scientific truth when it sings : "The heav-
ens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth
his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night
unto night sheweth knowledge." Star speaks to star
while all things of the cosmos of God listen and know.
Faraday's vision was that "all things are in perpetual
contact with each other, every star feeling, so to speak,
the heartbeat of every other star and of every living
thing, even of the tiniest worms in the earth." This vision
of the oneness of all things, of all life, pushes back our
horizons to infinity. We get a new idea of the unity of
God's work and its purpose. We can seem to see more
clearly how God began with the simple and single life
germ cell, and, using that as a unit, has been bringing on
this marvelous complexity of life which reveals itself in
the vegetable kingdom, the animal kingdom, and in the
lives of men and women. This thought illuminates more
clearly that whole theory of the development of life
from the simplest form to the most complex forms, which
we have named Evolution. If we are thinking clearly,
what we mean by Evolution is simply the pathway along
which progress has come. The power directing or lead-
ing that progress is not connoted in the word Evolution,
In the realm of Evolution we are dealing with science. In
the realm of the cause, or causes, developing that process
along the way known we are dealing with metaphysics and
theology. In both fields the world is constantly seeking
for new light in the new facts discovered and properly
related.
[28]
JAMES STANLEY DURKEE
Being among the mountains I arose from my bed while
it was yet dark, that I might see the miracle of the coming
of light, and the sunrise among the peaks. Along the sky-
line was a bluish-gray light, wavering, swaying, holding,
receding, battling for permanent place. But the sun had
marshaled his battalions and was ready to carry the
heights by assault. Along the peaks came a rosy glow.
Spears of gold tipped the topmost spires of the mountain
pinnacles. Then a charge of light horsemen swept along
the ridges, and darkness was gone from the heights. Be-
tween sharp promontories, suddenly there flashed a great
beam of splendor that touched to strange fire the crest of
the mountains. The armies of light had put to flight the
armies of darkness. Day had come and the night had
fled away. The rosy dawn kisses the east into smiles. The
night is gone! The darkness is fled! *Tis light I 'Tis
day!
The coming of light into a dark mind brings joy un-
speakable. The famous example of that joy is the story
told of Archimedes, who, upon discovering a method of
determining the purity of gold in King Hiero's crown,
cried out in ecstacy, "Eureka ! Eureka ! I have found
it! I have found it!" It is interesting to note that this
expression is the motto of the State of California.
I know of no gladness like that which follows the dis-
pelling of darkness in the mind and the flooding in of
light. To find the answer to that problem, to see the way
one should take, to watch the door open and the light
stream through, to find doubt gone and assurance stand-
[29]
THE LIGHT BBINGEB
ing calmly there these are experiences which glorify
human living.
Is it not remarkable that the coming of light to one
person often means the lighting of millions of pathways.
When Mr. Edison succeeded in making that filament grow
within a vacuum, he was preparing light for uncounted
millions of people. When Abraham Lincoln uttered his
famous sentence, "No nation can exist half slave, half
free," he was pouring light into human minds for untold
centuries to come. When Neil Dow exclaimed that no
nation could exist half drunk, half sober, he, too, was
pouring light on the pathways of men and nations for all
the ages to be. When Lord Cecil, father and mother of
the World Court and the League of Nations at Geneva, de-
clared that either war must be abolished or civilization
wiped out, he also was pouring in light which shall guide
the thought of every statesman in the long eras of human
development which lie before us. When Moses gave to
the world those Ten Commandments, he gave ten lamps of
social and religious guidance which shall never go out.
Those lights will light up the dark pathways of men as
long as pathways are trodden by mankind. When Galileo
gave expression to his new theories in physics, he sent a
beam down the ages which will guide every night flier on
every bold venture into the unknown. When the switches
were thrown in the heart of Martin Luther, and he read
in the light of that brilliant illumination "The just shall
live by faith," the darkness of old superstitions was gone,
and henceforward men and women would walk, not in
[30]
JAMES STANLEY DIJBKEE
ignorance and fear, but in the light of the freedom of the
glorious gospel of Jesus Christ.
The words of the text are a few of those overflowing
words of old Simeon the prophet. How he caught the
gleam? what soul-voice spoke to him, what western gates
opened that he might look into the future with such clear
vision, we may never know. The spiritually illumined
soul is an enigma still. We have not a science of the
spiritual that can note and classify the laws upon which
can be builded a sure prognostication of what will happen
under given circumstances. "The wind bloweth where it
listeth, and thou heareth the sound thereof, but canst not
tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth : so is every one
that is born of the Spirit."
But Simeon did see and he did give expression to that
wonderful vision. As he took the child up in his arms the
effect was to turn the switch of the eternal and light up
all the centuries which are to be. In that brilliant light
he cried : "Here, here, here is He for whom the world has
been waiting. The child shall grow to be the spiritual
guide of all the ages before." "A light to lighten the
Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel."
And what a light has come to the Gentiles through the
teachings of this Jesus of Nazareth. The closer those
teachings have been followed, the higher has been the
civilization of men and women. Unconsciously the stand-
ard of the world to-day is the standard of the teaching of
this Jesus. Whether men will or no, they bring their
actions before him for judgment. The Gentile world has
THE LIGHT BEIJSTGEE
pushed forward to its marvelous development and power
in accordance as it has laid hold on the teachings of Jesus.
But what a sorrowful thing it is that Israel has not re-
ceived the glory that was meant to be hers, by the coming
of Christ and the flashing of that light before the world !
Israel has refused that light. Israel deliberately turned
her back to it, and sought the ways not illumined by his
presence and his teachings. Yet where the children of
Israel have thrived most in the heart of the Gentile world,
there that Gentile world has come nearest to a subjection
to the teachings of Christ. Israel herself pays homage to
this light flashing from Christ by thriving most in the
conditions where that light is brightest.
And, too, is it not a remarkable thing that in those
countries where the light of Christ is most widely diffused
the very people who refuse that light cry out most loudly
for more of it? Karl Marx had a great vision of the so-
cial equality of man, and how this equality might be
brought about. He caught the vision in the land where
the light of Christ was shining most brightly.
But he was as a man looking into the sun. So intense is
the light that the eyes are blinded. Strangely indeed,
Karl Marx turns from the very light he sought to build
up a system that could have no light in it of the truly
spiritual, forgetting all the while that "where there is no
vision, the people perish." The cry of the great Psalmist,
David, still echoes over the hills and plains of human ex-
istence, "O send out thy light and thy truth: let them
bring me unto thy holy hill, and to thy tabernacles/*
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JAMES STANLEY DTJRKEE
THE WORLD'S LIGHT
Take this truth into the realm of discovery. Vasco de
Gama sailed down the African coast, seeking a passage to
India. At the southernmost point of the continent storms
fought him back for weeks. But his dogged persistence
won at last, and he rounded the Cape, sailing into the
Indian Ocean and founding a new trade route. When
back at home, he reported to the King of Spain the ter-
rible battle with the seas at the Cape, and announced that
he had named that promontory "The Cape of Storms."
But the King, seeing the far-reaching results of his in-
trepid sailor's discovery, said, "Nay, call it the Cape of
Good Hope" and the Cape of Good Hope it remains to
this day.
Joaquin Miller, our American poet, pictures Columbus
dropping the Azores in the wake of his ships and sailing
out over that uncharted and unknown western sea. He
tells of the mutiny of the sailors and the agony of the
officers, but tells also of the unquenchable spirit of the
great leader himself.
David Livingstone would know the secrets hidden in the
heart of that unknown continent of Africa. Echoes of
the sufferings came to the coasts along the slave traders'
trails. Strange black people of splendid physique and
intelligence came out from a land of darkness and silence.
Livingstone would know whence they came and what sor-
rows were theirs. So he plunged into that darkness, went
alone and fearless, trusting in a people's God.
[33]
THE LIGHT BBINGEK,
"To lift the somber fringe of the night,
To open lands long darkened to the light,
To heal grim wounds and bring the blind new sight.
Right faithfully wrought he !
He came like light across the darkened land,
And dying, left behind him this command,
The door is open, so let it ever stand.
Right mightily wrought he!"
Take this truth in the realm of science. Professor
Pupin tells the story of how Faraday, Maxwell, Helmholtz,
and scores of others followed from the known to the un-
known, contacting with strange powers along the way,
and finally giving to humanity the electric battery which
has become a foundation of blessing so great that the
imagination staggers before it even yet.
Follow the scientists in chemistry as they break up the
elements into hitherto undreamed-of parts and recombine
those parts according to learned formulas, presenting to
the world new colors, new remedies, new strength in mate-
rial, new wonders of earth and heaven. The tar-barrel
alone has revealed over nine hundred different shades of
beauty, besides a multitude of other values for human life.
The specialists in medicine and surgery have applied these
findings to bodily ills and brought vast alleviation to
human suffering.
The geologist has opened the leaves of the rocks to
read there the story of life's beginnings and development,
The biologist has followed back along the way of life to
find strange developments, strange variations, strange per-
sistencies, linking an unknown past to this present and to
that unknown future.
[34]
JAMBS STANLEY DUUKEE
The archeologist has followed up from the cave dwell-
ers, or retraced the way back from home builders, seeking
to solve the enigma of human progress and development.
In clearer light than ever before, we are reading the ways
of God in his process of creation and growth. What a
story is this fascinating story of life !
Take this truth in the realm of religion. Unknown
dreamers of a long, dead past slowly, so slowly, formulated
their theories of physical and spiritual relationships, giv-
ing them utterance in stories of creation, the fall of man,
the flood, and all those great happenings of an infinite past.
We read those stories in Persian literature written thou-
sands of years before those unknown writers begin to speak
in the matchless poems with which the Book of Genesis
opens. By the time these Genesis writers sing, a new con-
ception has flooded the minds of seers. There is one God,
not many gods, and he is the creator of all things. What
a revolution in human thought that utterance brought, "In
the beginning God created." From the beginning of the
Book of Genesis to the close of the Book of Revelation,
we are constantly reading the names of light bringers.
Abraham hears the voice of God in his soul and follows
out to a strange country, there to become the father of a
spiritual race through which should come "The Light of
the World," Jesus Christ. Isaiah the prophet sees so
deeply into the spiritual needs of the human race, that he
can paint almost a portrait of the One who must come to
satisfy those spiritual needs and lead the whole race for-
ward in its spiritual quest. It is truly startling to note
[35]
THE LIGHT BEINGEK
the spiritual comprehension of Isaiah as it was fulfilled in
Jesus Christ himself. But the light bringer, supremest of
all, is that same Jesus Christ. Standing under the great
chandeliers of the temple, he could cry, "I am the light
of the world." Preposterous as such a statement may
have seemed at that time, subsequent ages prove the state-
ment true. The more our present civilization absorbs his
teachings, the more light shines upon its pathway. The
real prophets of our day see but more brilliant light shin-
ing from him along the centuries to be, until humanity
reaches its destined perfection. He is as a light "that
shineth more and more unto the perfect day." If we
walk in the light as he is in the light, we will find our path-
way lighted through the valley of the shadows of death
clear through to the Home Eternal !
Examine critically every light-bringing agency of earth,
every system devised by man, every contribution by men
and women, and we shall find that Jesus Christ has given
more light to dark minds and hearts than all others com-
bined.
Heartily and well did John Monsell sing :
"Light of the world, we hail thee,
Flushing the eastern skies!
Ne'er shall the darkness veil thee
Again from human eyes;
Too long, alas! WIthholden,
Thou spread from shore to shore;
Thy light, so glad and golden,
Shall set on earth no more.
Light of the world, illumine
This darkened earth of thine,
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JAMES STANLEY DTJKKEE
Till everything that's human
Be filled with the divine;
Till every tongue and nation.
From sin's dominion free,
Rise in the new creation,
Which springs from love and thee."
NEED OF LIGHT BEINGERS
As civilization advances, more light is needed. Two
great gifts of light for physical eyes have been given.
One gift was from God and one from man. When God
said, "Let there be light," day appeared in all its re-
splendent glory. When Thomas Edison said, "Let there
be light," darkness fled away and the night became as the
day.
Yet the light for physical eyes only is but the alphabet
for human achievement. To combine those letters into
words, and with the words create a literature that glorifies
humanity, calls for light in the brains and souls of men.
He who can light up the life of another and cause a mind
to glow and a heart to see is the most needed of all men.
As Carlyle says, "In every epoch of the world, the great
event, parent of all others, is it not the arrival of a
thinker in the world?'*
But the truth of one age becomes the untruth of a fol-
lowing age. The thinker has flashed a light, new to him-
self and those of his time, and in that glow a generation
has lived and wrought. Here and there, however, a few
have applied this light to dark places, and they have be-
come illuminated. Such places reveal that the original
meaning was but partial truth ; now larger revelations blot
[37]
THE LIGHT BEINGEE
out the lesser shining. The old light is absorbed in the
new. The old truth is outgrown in the new.
"The old order changeth, giving place to new,
God fulfills himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom corrupt the world."
Jesus brought a new light to human relationships.
Formerly men thought that to commit the actual act was
murder. Jesus shows that murder and adultery and
every sin is actually committed in the heart. "An eye for
an eye and a tooth for a tooth," was the old belief. Jesus
shows that to resist evil with evil is deadly. "If thy
brother smite thee on the right cheek, turn to him the
other also," The fighting will be over by that time, if thy
brother is a brother. A brute demands different treat-
ment.
Men said, "Love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. 55
Nay, said Jesus, love your enemy and make him your
friend by your love.
These great truths were great new lights in a world of
evil Israel needed them; she was hurrying to her own
destruction. Rome needed them: she was rotting to her
doom. Jesus came preaching the doctrine of the King-
dom of God and prayed, "Thy kingdom come; thy will be
done on earth as it is in heaven." To make of this earth
a kingdom of righteousness, was his plea. To make the
righteousness of God regnant on earth, was his plan. He
came not to save men for heaven, but to save them for
earth. He saw the need of a civic and social salvation
here in this world. He demanded righteousness in the
[38]
JAMES STANLEY DTJEKEE
home, the church, and the state. It was because he con-
demned unrighteousness, and held up its ghastly corpse
to view, that he drew upon himself the hate that finally
murdered him under the sham of law. He did not die to
get men to heaven ; he died to get heaven to men.
Strange, is it not, how his teachings have been so cor-
rupted as to reverse his whole order of thinking and
planning? It was so hard to endure the bodily suffering
necessary to destroy evil and cause good to reign in its
stead, that men began to think of heaven in another world,
as a place free from battling and suffering. They would
endeavor to gain that heaven by shunning the battles
here. They would renounce the world to gain a spiritual
heaven beyond. They forgot that such a spiritual heaven
could be gained only through battling to have a spiritual
world here.
Ere long our theology became set to the idea that peo-
ple must be saved out of this world rather than be saved
in it. For centuries, generations strove to get to a spir-
itual heaven by "climbing up some other 'wray." They
strove to save their souls by hiding from the world, and in
so doing shrunk their souls to a littleness that made them
not worth the saving. But all the while that great prayer
of Jesus was sending forth its invitation "Thy kingdom
come ; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."
I profoundly believe in a spiritual heaven, but I know
it can be attained only through earth battle. We cannot
"be carried to the skies
On flowery beds of ease,
While others fight to win the prize,
And sail through bloody seas."
[39]
THE LIGHT ERINGER
I frankly believe that the size of my spiritual heaven will
be in exact ratio to the size of my striving for heaven on
earth. I may have a small room, or a large, according as
I have builded here. I do love to think of that spiritual
heaven, when I grow weary in the conflict here. Thoughts
of that life rest me and nerve me to greater activity in this
life. My other-worldliness is founded on my tlns-worldli-
ness. I am sure of my spiritual heaven if I give all I
have, or can get, to the service of God and man in bringing
a real heaven here. If I follow Jesus Christ and fight
through here, as did he, I am absolutely sure of my place
"in my Father's house where there are many mansions."
Such truth is greatly needed to-day. The leaven of the
gospel is working in human society as never before. It is
often not recognized as gospel leaven. Men call it social-
ism, or human betterment, or brotherhood, or commun-
ism; but it is the leaven of the gospel of Christ. That
leaven has found its way into the social order, and the old
oppression of riches is being destroyed. It has found its
way into the coal fields, into the steel trade, into the
shipping circles, into bank meetings, and a strange rest-
lessness is upon the world. Too long have we been calling
"depression" what is really the casting away of "oppres-
sion." This new light must shine in our government life.
Our cities, rotting in graft and greed and lawlessness, are
spreading their contagion to state and nation. This new
light must shine in our domestic life. The bonds of mar-
riage have been loosened to convenience, and the sacred
relations of the sexes, maintained for peopling the earth,
have been rotted to what is termed "free love," which
[40]
JAMES STANLEY DTJKKEE
reeks with the smell of decayed virtue. This same truth
must find larger expression in our religious life. We
have built up our personal pride into barriers that divide
people and accentuate our differences. The religion of
Jesus Christ is a leveler of barriers and the destruction of
separating walls. A denominationalism that puts those
frowning walls between Catholic and Protestant, between
Jew and Gentile, between Baptist and Methodist and Pres-
byterian and Congregationalist, is not the religion of
Jesus Christ. These walls have been built by pride in
human religion, not by the love which emanates from the
heart of Jesus Christ. The closer we come to him, the
more we find the barriers gone, for "He hath broken down
the middle wall of partition."
The light bringers shall have many sorrows. Christian
pastors and teachers and followers will grieve that their
messages are ignored, disputed, or refused. They will
watch men and women stumble on in darkness to defeat
and death, when they might walk in the light and travel
straight to their spiritual home eternal. They will en-
counter those who love darkness more than light, because
their deeds are evil, and often will be defeated in the bat-
tle, for frequently the "children of this world are wiser in
their generation than the children of light." They will be
stoned, sawn asunder, wander about in sheepskins and
goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented, of whom
the world is not worthy. Yet it is not the light bringers
who will suffer when the torches are torn from their hands ;
it is those whose paths they would lighten.
[41]
THE LIGHT BBIKGEB
Such haters of the light thought to put out the light
of Jesus Christ; they succeeded in tearing the veil in
twain and letting in the glory beams of the eternal. They
thought to silence him forever ; but they gave him a sound-
ing board that rings his messages clearer as the centuries
go by. They thought to crucify him; they glorified him
instead and made of that very cross a symbol of the great-
est love, the greatest devotion, the greatest allegiance to
truth that the children of men can ever know. He is in-
deed to-day and forever will be "a light to lighten the
Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel."
Gladly indeed and exultingly do we sing with John
Henry Newman:
"Lead, kindly Light, amid th' encircling gloom,
Lead thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home;
Lead thou me on!
Keep thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene; one step enough for me."
[*2]
Ill
Conquering One's Doubts
JAMES GORDON GILKEY
MINISTEE, SOUTH CHUECH, SPBINGFIELD, MASS.
JAMES GORDON GILKEY was born in
1889 at Watertown, Mass. He graduated from
Harvard University with the degrees of A.B.
and M.A. He studied in the Universities of
Berlin and Marburg. He received the B.D. de-
gree from Union Theological Seminary. Col-
gate University bestowed upon him the hon-
orary degree of Doctor of Divinity.
He was ordained in the Presbyterian minis-
try, was assistant minister of Bryn Mawr
Church, and has been pastor of South Church,
Springfield, Mass., for many years. He is also
Professor of Biblical Literature at Amherst
College.
He is a trustee of the International Y. M.
C. A. College at Springfield and is president
of the Springfield Symphony Orchestra.
He is a regular college and university preach-
er at the Eastern colleges and universities.
He is the author of A Faith for the New
Generation, The Certainty of God, Secrets of
Effective Living, and Problems of Everyday
Living.
He has been an inspiration to many young
men and women.
Ill
CONQUERING ONE'S DOUBTS
JAMES GORDON GILKEY
God drove Adam out of Eden, and at the east
of the garden set cherubim with flaming
swords to guard the tree of life.
GENESIS 3: 24.
DIB you ever study the details of the first picture in the
Bible? A beautiful garden, with two human beings in it.
In the center of the garden two magical trees. The fruit
of one gives knowledge, the fruit of the other eternal life.
One day the human beings violate God's command and
eat the fruit of the first tree. God discovers what has
happened, and is enraged and alarmed. What if these
rebels should eat the fruit of the other tree as well? They
have already gained knowledge. Then they would have
immortality too. So in anger and fear "God drove Adam
out of Eden, and at the east of the garden set cherubim
with flaming swords to guard the tree of life." This is
the scene with which the Bible opens. The tree of life is
closely guarded. God is keeping immortality for himself.
What is the final picture in the Bible? A celestial city,
with a crystal stream flowing through it. That stream
is the river of the water of life. Anyone who drinks will
be immortal. On either side of the stream magical trees
are growing. They are trees of life, and their fruit gives
immortality. Within the city is a great company, gath-
[45]
CONQUERING ONE'S DOUBTS
ered from every tongue and tribe and kindred. Is God
barring those people from the trees of life and from the
water of life? Quite the contrary. Throughout the celes-
tial city his voice sounds. "The Spirit and the bride say,
Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever
will, let him take the water of life freely." Why is there
such a difference between the two pictures? Why does
Genesis say that God drove Adam away from the tree of
life, while Revelation says that to it he invites ten thou-
sand times ten thousand? Because a long interval elapsed
between the writings of those two books, and because
during that period the conception of God changed pro-
foundly. Men came to see that he is not selfish and that
he is not jealous. They realized that he is loving and
helpful, that he can be trusted to share immortality with
his children. Thus the basic ideas of Genesis gave place to
those of Revelation. The flaming swords vanished from
the tree of life, and the tree was planted in the very center
of the celestial city.
Have there been further changes in religious belief
since the Bible was written? Of course. How could the
situation be otherwise? Our knowledge has increased be-
yond all expectation, and this new wisdom has altered
profoundly our theory of life, our conception of God, and
our beliefs about immortality. You can discover what
some of the changes are if you look again at the picture
in Revelation. God gives, the author of the book says, a
joyous immortality to part of the human race. But out-
side heaven is a vast throng of lost souls. There is no
possible way by which they can gain entrance to the celes-
[46]
JAMES GORDON GILKEY
tial city. They are not only excluded from heaven, but
they are destined to suffer throughout eternity excruciat-
ing torment. The author writes grimly: "As for the
craven, the faithless, and the abominable; as for murder-
ers, sorcerers, idolaters, and liars of all sorts, their lot is
the lake that blazes with fire and brimstone." Throughout
the Middle Ages that gruesome detail remained in one
corner of the picture. Then a few courageous and in-
telligent men, chiefly the Universalist ministers of the
eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, began to ques-
tion the theory of eternal damnation for any member of
the human race. If God is a God of love, will he ever be
guilty of such immense cruelty? If love is the strongest
power in the world, can it not be trusted to win its way?
When men began to ask those questions the picture of
God in the book of Revelation began to fade just as, cen-
turies before, the picture of God in the book of Genesis
had faded. In its place men began to draw a new picture.
As time went on the new picture was accepted by more
and more people, and to-day it is regarded as true by
literally millions of Christians. Tennyson phrased the
new faith in two of the finest stanzas of "In Memoriam" :
"Oh yet we trust that somehow good
Will be the final goal of HI,
To pangs of nature, sins of will,
Defects of doubt, and taints of blood;
That nothing walks with aimless feet;
That not one life shall be destroy'd
Or cast as rubbish to the void,
When God hath made the pile complete."
[47]
CONQUERING ONE 8 DOUBTS
There is the stage of religious thought beyond the book
of Revelation. It maintains that God gives victory over
death to more than a few. It says he leads everyone,
literally everyone, to the tree of life.
When we discuss the problem of conquering doubt we
must recall this progress in religious ideas. No modern
liberal pretends to defend the beliefs which were outgrown
twenty or even two centuries ago. What we are con-
cerned with are the new and more intelligent convic-
tions which have supplanted those our ancestors knew.
Curiously enough, many critics of modern religion over-
look the fact that there has been this immense change.
They ask, with evident condescension, whether we preach-
ers are still discussing the date of the end of the world.
They inquire whether we are intrigued by the prospect
of such a heaven as the book of Revelation describes.
They forget that modern Christianity has moved beyond
the teaching of Revelation, just as Revelation moved be-
yond the teaching of Genesis. Our modern beliefs, as they
relate to the subject of immortality, might be summed up
in four statements. First, we believe that at the heart of
things there is a living, loving God. In his sight human
beings are infinitely precious, far too precious to be
destroyed. This is a belief we share with Jesus; and
because it lies at the basis of our convictions as it lay at
the basis of his we call ourselves Christians, followers of
Jesus. Second, we believe that this loving God initiated
the vast growth-process which we term the process of
evolution. It called our earth into being, then brought
forth the lower forms of organic life, and finally produced
[48]
JAMES GORDON GILKEY
the human race. This knowledge we gain from modern
science. It was of course unknown to Jesus. Third, we
believe that the purpose of our existence on the earth
is the development of the mental and spiritual powers
hidden within each of us. God has put us here with de-
liberate intent that we may learn to think, to achieve,
to understand and help each other. In this development
of wise and kindly character, this perfecting of personal-
ity, we find the meaning and purpose of our present
existence. Finally, we believe that beyond death a new
life opens before every human being. We shall begin that
second phase of our endless growth with the mental and
spiritual equipment gained during the first phase. If,
thanks to struggle and self-discipline, we win here a fine
and noble self, that self will be our imperishable possession
in the eternity ahead. If we gain here only a wretched,
half -ignorant self, we shall be that much handicapped as
we face the new existence. After death, as after to-night's
sleep, each of us will wake with exactly the same char-
acter and personality he had before. Eternal life is not a
boon which God may grant or deny after we die. Eternal
life is ours already. It is the inalienable birthright of
every human being. It began, for us all, the moment we
came into the world.
Over against the beliefs of modern religion stand the
entirely different beliefs of modern skepticism. The
skeptics deny all four of the convictions we have just
mentioned. See how sharp the contrast is between the
two views of life and history! First, the skeptics main-
tain there is no God at the heart of things. Rather, they
[49]
DOUBTS
say, human beings are utterly alone in an alien, uncaring
universe. Second, the skeptics maintain that the evolu-
tionary process originated in sheer coincidence. At a
certain instant millions of years ago the total situation
happened to be exactly right, and the vast life-process of
which the human race is the unforeseen end-product
started itself. A purposeful God had nothing to do with
it. Third, the skeptics claim there is no meaning in the
presence of human beings on the earth. Men and women
are, the skeptics say, only tiny and insignificant frag-
ments of organic matter which stir for an instant of
cosmic time before they are dissolved back into the chemi-
cal elements from which they were originally and for-
tuitously compounded. Finally, the skeptics assert there
is no such thing as the survival of individual personalities
after death. They admit that a man's influence may sur-
vive, and that in the case of a great man it may endure
for centuries. They confess that if a man leaves children,
and they in turn leave children, that the man lives on in
his descendants. But that the man himself, apart from
his influence and his offspring, endures as a self-conscious
personality that the skeptics flatly deny. How does the
world appear to the men who adopt these views ? Bertrand
Kussell says: "We see, surrounding our narrow raft il-
lumined by the flickering light of human comradeship, the
dark ocean on whose rolling waves we toss for a brief
hour. From the great night without, a chill blast breaks
in upon our refuge. All the loneliness of humanity,
caught amid hostile forces, is concentrated on the indi-
vidual soul, which must struggle with what courage it
[60]
JAMES GORDON GILKEY
can command against the whole weight of a universe
that cares nothing for its hopes and fears.' 9 It is between
these two views of life, one offered by modern religion, and
the other offered by modern skepticism, that our genera-
tion is called upon to choose.
In a large congregation there are, undoubtedly, many
people who are not concerned over this choice. They are
content to eat and sleep, work and play, and let questions
about the meaning of life stand aside. There are still
other people who are not troubled by modern doubt.
Years ago they won a firm religious faith, and the theories
of modern skepticism seem to them meaningless. But
there are some of us who are in an entirely different posi-
tion. We cannot go through life without wondering why
we are here and whither we are bound. We want to be-
lieve in the splendor and permanence of human person-
alities, but again and again we are overwhelmed by
uncertainty. What if our Christian faith is, as the skep-
tics say, only a glittering dream, a wish-fancy that makes
an otherwise intolerable existence halfway endurable?
What if we are, as modern skepticism declares, miserable
insects crawling from one annihilation to another? When
a man finds himself in that quandary he wants one type of
help on Easter Sunday. He wants to learn how to con-
quer doubt, how he can master the mood of cynicism and
despair. What can we say to him?
As we face this problem of conquering doubt, there is
one fact we should bear clearly in mind. There are as
many difficulties involved in accepting modern skepticism
as there are in accepting modern religious faith. This is
[si]
COISTQUEEESTG ONE S DOUBTS
a fact which bewildered individuals, particularly bewil-
dered young people, often forget. They fancy that if
they stopped trying to believe in God, trying to believe in
the significance of human life, and trying to retain faith
in immortality, their intellectual difficulties would be at an
end. Nothing of the kind is true. These individuals
would merely exchange one set of puzzles for another.
They would then find themselves beset by moments of
faith, as they are now beset by moments of doubt. Sup-
pose you say there is no God, and that the world-process
originated in a gigantic fluke. The orderliness of the
universe raises an immediate protest. How could such
perfect order as microscopes and telescopes disclose be
the product of blind energy working fortuitously on inert
matter? Suppose you say that human beings are in-
significant fragments of organic matter, "bundles of cellu-
lar material on the path to decay." The character of
every fine person you know rises in denial. There was
something in Socrates, something in Jesus, something in
your mother which chemical analysis cannot capture and
cannot disclose. Suppose you say that death is the end
of everything, and the ancient faith in the renewal of life
is only a dream. You see the Easter flowers, and you
begin to wonder. What if people do live again, after all?
To deny the brave things men have believed does not solve
our intellectual problems. It means merely that we ex-
change a life of faith interrupted by doubt for one of
doubt interrupted by faith. Years ago Browning stated
this fact in singularly vivid phrases.
[52]
JAMES GOB-DON GILKEY
"How can we guard our unbelief?
Just when we're safest there's a sunset-touch,
A fancy from a flower-bell, someone's death,
A chorus-ending from Euripides,
And that's enough for fifty hopes and fears,
As new and old at once as Nature's self,
To rap and knock and enter In our soul,
Take hands and dance there, a fantastic ring,
Round the ancient idol on his base again,
The Grand Perhaps!"
Some of us, realizing that final and demonstrable proof
is in either case impossible, are ready to trust our
hopes rather than our fears. We are willing to believe
the best rather than the worst about life, and take the
consequences.
After we have recognized this situation we find there
are several definite things we can do to bolster our faith
in the significance and permanence of human lives. To
begin with, we can remind ourselves that there are a great
many situations in which we are forced to act on the basis
of reasonable certainty rather than that of demonstrated
fact. Consider the record of your own life. When, in
youth, a man chooses his career he is compelled to make
a bewildering venture. No one can demonstrate that he
will prove to be a skillful physician, a resourceful sales-
man, an effective public speaker. All a young man can
do when he chooses a career is establish a reasonable cer-
tainty, and then begin preparing for the work that lies
ahead. When he decides in what community he will live
he faces a similar difficulty. No one can prove that a
certain city will give him the response, the opportunity,
and the happiness he craves. All a young man can do is
[53]
CONQTJEKOTO ONE^S DOUBTS
study the situation, determine what the prospects seem to
be, and then act accordingly. Marriage represents, of
course, the greatest venture of all. No third party can
demonstrate that the girl a young man loves will measure
up to his expectations. Certainly no third party can
prove to a girl that the young man she loves will, through
the long years ahead, prove worthy of her trust. All two
young people can do is establish, through a period of
some months or years, a reasonable certainty about each
other. Then a day comes when, on the basis of probability
rather than established fact, they must begin life to-
gether. Repeatedly we are forced to make these ventures
not blindly, but with the light of intelligence and cour-
age shining only part way down the road. Why should
we be surprised when, as we try to make an interpretation
of existence, this same situation develops? Why should
we be unwilling to follow in the domain of belief the same
course of action we follow repeatedly in the domain of life
choices?
In our moments of doubt we can also recall the en-
couraging fact that thousands of our contemporaries, and
highly intelligent people too, share the high view of life.
These men and women are thoroughly familiar with the
problems modern science thrusts before the mind, and
they have faced the alternative between Christian faith
and modern skepticism. How it heartens us to find,
everywhere in the modern world, people who have made
their way through this darkness to a sure and radiant
belief! Listen to Dr. Little, until recently president of
the University of Michigan: "The death of my own
[54]
JAMES GOBDCXN- GILKEY
parents within a day of each other completely wiped out
earlier bases for a belief in immortality, and replaced
them with an indescribable but completely convincing real-
ization that there is such a thing. Such experiences are, I
realize, not transferable. But they are probably the most
sacred and the most comforting realizations known to any
of us." Or listen to Professor Darrach, dean of the Medi-
cal School at Columbia University : "The continued influ-
ence of those who have departed this life, and the sense of
the continuing existence of their personalities, have been
strong enough to remove for me all doubt as to some form
of life after death. What it is, or in what form it consists,
I care not. But I do believe that those who are gone
continue to exist, and I believe we can be influenced by
them." Granted that in this matter of the interpretation
of life each one of us must find his own belief, his own
path to inward assurance. Granted that educated people
may be, and often are, deceived. There still are some of
us who, caught in a mood of doubt and cynicism, turn our
thought to the wisest and noblest people we know. We
remind ourselves that they have faced these same ques-
tions, grappled with these same difficulties, and finally
decided that there is enough evidence to warrant faith in
God, faith in the significance of human beings, and faith
in life beyond death. When our own vision fades we
thank God for the clear and steady sight of these other
eyes. When our own courage falters we listen to the
brave song that rises from these other lips. Repeatedly
we make our way through a region of darkness and doubt
[55]
ONE 8 DOUBTS
by following the steps of these other pilgrims whose cour-
age is greater and whose step steadier than our own.
But the surest road to inward conviction lies elsewhere.
The next time you find yourself wondering whether the
brave beliefs of Christianity are true, think deeply about
the character of God. That there is a God few reflective
people will deny. On every side we find evidences of a
Great Mind and a Great Power within the universe. That
Mind and Power are what we mean by God. Can we
learn anything about God's character. Consider this
analogy. A shipwrecked sailor is cast on a tiny island
in the South Seas. In the midst of the palm trees grow-
ing on the shore he sees a dwelling. He makes his way
eagerly to the house, but the owner is nowhere on the
premises. While that sailor is waiting for the owner to
appear can he learn anything about him? The sailor
notices that the walls of the room are covered with paint-
ings. On an easel near the window he sees a half-finished
picture. What can he reasonably conclude about the
occupation of the man he has not seen? On the table in
that room is a pile of books and pamphlets, one lying
wide open with a pair of spectacles beside it. When the
sailor examines these books and pamphlets he discovers
that all of them are in German. What can he conclude
about the man who was reading them a few moments pre-
viously? The sailor himself happens to be a German,
and eagerly he studies the publications on the table.
Each one, curiously enough, deals with the same subject
the trees and the flowers of the South Sea Islands*
What can the sailor infer about the intellectual interests
JAMES GORDON GELKEY
o the man who brought the books from Germany? As
yet the sailor has not seen the man at all. But he has
begun to gain, through a process of logical inference, a
significant understanding of the type of person who will
presently appear.
When we want to learn something about the character
of God we follow the same procedure. Here we are, puz-
zled castaways on a tiny island lost in measureless seas of
Space. Many situations impel us to believe that Someone
Else is here with us, though as yet we have not seen Him.
As we study the world this Unseen Comrade has called
into being we discover that it makes consistent and sig-
nificant impressions on the mind. It is a world shot
through and through with intelligence, a world crammed
with beauty, a world in which love, loyalty, and sacrificial
kindness emerge everywhere. What does such a world
tell us about the God who made it and who dwells unseen
within its walls? He must be intelligent, he must appre-
ciate beauty, he must have a heart of love. What would
such a God do for and with the human beings who have
finally entered his dwelling? He would do for them what
modern Christianity says he would. He would surround
us with his love and care. He would put meaning, pur-
pose, and possibilities of splendor into our existence here.
He would open before us all that life-beyond-death which
our eager minds and our half-satisfied hearts so deeply
crave. These great convictions are not blind, unfounded
guesses. They are reasoned conclusions, made by the
human spirit at its best.
[57]
IV
The Unhidden Christ
EDWIN HOLT HUGHES
BISHOP, METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHUECH
WASHINGTON ABEA
EDWIN HOLT HUGHES was born in
1866 at Moundsville, W. Va. He graduated
from Ohio Wesleyan with the degrees of A,B.
and M.A. He received the S.T.B. degree from
Boston University. The honorary degrees of
B.B., S.T.B., and LL.B. have been conferred
upon him by various colleges and universities.
He was ordained in the Methodist ministry.
He was pastor at Newton Center, Mass., and
Maiden, Mass. He was president of Be Pauw
University.
He was made Bishop in 1908.
He is a trustee of the Carnegie Foundation,
Northwestern University, Be Pauw University,
Ohio Wesleyan, and Boston University.
He is a popular speaker at seminaries and
universities,
He is the author of A Boy's Religion, The
Bible and Life, God's Family, Christianity and
Success.
IV
THE UNHIDDEN CHRIST
EDWIN HOLT HUGHES
He could not be Md. LUKE 7 : 24.
IT is interesting, at the outset, to note the differing trans-
lations of these words as they appear in well-known ver-
sions, Weymouth has them, "He could not escape
observation." Goodspeed renders them, "He could not
keep it secret." Moffatt phrases them, "He could not
escape notice." All the new puttings depart from a cer-
tain simplicity in the King James Bible, the ancient being
the only one that keeps to monosyllables. But the general
idea in all the versions remains the same that there was
then something about Christ that defied concealment; an
inevitable publicity so insistent that it came unsought ; an
inner something that demanded an outer bulletin ; a radi-
ance so great that no midnight of circumstances could
hold it in darkness ; a sun which clouds could not cast into
shadows.
It is always interesting to note how the local and
temporary references to our Redeemer escape from small
places and from brief hours to inhabit the world and the
centuries. The text itself is a fascinating instance.
Christ had been in his own country. If his coming there
had excited curiosity, his stay had excited amazement.
The people had been astonished at his language. This
carpenter's ,son had never gone to earthly schools, had
[61]
THE UNHIDDEN" CHRIST
never traveled the roads of old-time culture, had never
associated with the great scholars. All the channels along
which wisdom flows seemed to run away from this strange
man's life ; and the people could only ask in wonderment,
"Whence hath this man wisdom, having never learned?"
His very speech taxed all their theories about him. In
Gennesaret it had heen much the same. To quote the
quaint words of Moffatt, "The people at once recognized
Jesus; and they hurried all around the district." The
miracles of healing, which Harnack himself declared could
not be waved away by an unbelieving hand, grew to con-
vincing numbers and became even troublesome advertise-
ments. His path was lined with cots until the fields became
a vast, open-air hospital. He himself was smitten by
piteous appeals. The streets suffocated him with their
pressure of sorrow.
He passed into the North country, but his fame had
gone faster than himself. Within the far coasts of Tyre
and Sidon he needed no official herald to proclaim his
coming. The great wave of human anguish rolled to his
feet and moaned its way toward his heart. The regi-
ments of helpless soldiers, wounded in life's battles,
crawled painfully toward him and 1 besought his mercy.
His body felt the strain, and he must have rest. He
slipped quietly into a house, and shut the door, and said,
"Tell no man where I am." He sought a respite that he
might come forth again to put out plenteously his sym-
pathy and power. But there was no door that could stand
against the importunate presence of human need. There
was no curtained window that could hide him from ap-
[62]
HOLT HUGHES
pealing eyes. Suffering battered down the door, and want
broke through the window; and they find him out again.
The word is, "He went into a house, and would have no
man know it ; but Tie could not be "hid"
How that brief sentence itself declines to be hid ! Spo-
ken about an hour, it has meaning for all time. Spoken
with reference to a house, it has significance for the world.
Spoken of the clamorous need of one soul, it has a lesson
for all humanity. We are obliged to lift the statement
away from that one coast; from that one moment; from
that one dwelling; from that one person because that
winged truth goes out into all lands, down into all ages,
before all homes, and into all hearts. The local and tem-
porary statement of fact becomes a universal and ever-
lasting parable a parable whose chief contention is that
all attempts to hide Christ from the search of longing
souls are utterly vain. He is not only the unhidden
Christ; he is the "unhidable" Christ.
We may begin with the claim that Christ could not be
hid even before he came to Bethlehem. He was so much
needed by the world that long prior to his earthly birth
that need expressed itself in prophecy. Many heralds
went before the approaching monarch to cry out, "The
King comes! Long live the King!" Some of these her-
alds walked so far ahead of his chariot that the distance
between them and him seems pathetically long. None the
less they heard the far-off footsteps and caught brief
glimpses of the oncoming glory. We do not now discuss
[63]
THE UNHIDDEN CHRIST
the precise nature of their prophecy. We may not say
how distinctly they realized the type of his kingdom. We
do not know how accurately they beheld the form of his
royal Person. Doubtless there has often been a tendency
to exaggerate the element of foretelling and to find a
meaning for uncertain details. But this we know surely :
Christ could not be hidden before he came in the flesh.
His forerunners had made the world's heart tremulous and
expectant. As men watch for the rising of the sun at the
end of the weary night, so did men look for him.
The illustration of the morning's coming is so apt that
men have seized it eagerly and used it constantly. Before
the sun rises on the cold and dark world, it pushes its
f oregleams into the sky, and the watchmen see the prom-
ise of the dawn. Shafts of light ascend the heavens. A
thousand Jacob's ladders appear to a dreaming race. The
east takes on a hopeful view. The birds flutter from their
shelters and sing a welcome. Myriad voices break out
into the chorus, "The morning cometh." It was thus when
the Sun of Righteousness arose on the night and winter
of the spiritual world. The faithful watchmen on the
towers of hope turned toward the East. God cleared their
vision and they beheld glints of his dawn. The Day-Star
shone upon some souls in the nighttime. The secret of
his coming was so great that the heavens could not hold
it, and eager messengers whispered into devout hearts
some tidings of the advancing morn. Men may debate
the nature of prophecy; they may disagree as to its ex-
tent; but the assured fact abides that the Hebrew heart
was on the lookout for its Messiah. The highest
[64]
EDWIN HOLT HUGHES
of Jewish motherhood was to be the privilege of touching
his tiny hands and of crooning a lullaby over Isaiah's
Servant of God. When the future held him still, down
yonder in spaces vast and unknown, "He could not be
hid"
II
At his coming to the Bethlehem manger, it was even so
again an illustration of the fact that the world cannot
easily hide its own Sun. Taking the accounts much as
they stand, and leaving to the critical the privilege of re-
ducing the stories for themselves, the irreducible minimum
contains its own marvel. The decree of the Emperor
drives an expectant mother to a wee village, and crowds
its inn until she is compelled to rest her weariness and
meet her pain in the stable-cave. This king was born in
no palace ; but he could not be hid. The manger was un-
like a throne; but he could not be hid. The swaddling
clothes were not as royal purple ; but he could not be hid.
He gave the name of his birthplace to a star and hung
that star in the perpetual sky. He took the song of the
heavens and put it on the lips of a million earthly choirs.
He pulled to himself out of all pastoral lands the brood-
ing shepherds of the fields. He persuaded toward himself
throngs of wise men only to make them wiser still. The
evidences at his birth, however literally construed, are
not so amazing as the countless evidences since his birth
evidences which tell of his coming into the ever-extending
life of humanity.
Yet all this is in spite of the fact that the place and
THE UNHIDDEN" CH&IST
manner of Ms birth, appeared like a drama of concealment.
Can the world ever find him there amid the lowly beasts,
lying upon the hay, covered by the coarse garments, sleep-
ing upon the breast of the poor and humble mother? Can
it hear the voice of a Babe amid the confusion of moving
caravans and the boisterous calls of pilgrims? It did
find, and it did hear. Bethlehem and the Stable were good
hiding places, but they were not equal to hiding him.
Phillips Brooks states it truly
"O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting light.
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee to-night. 5 *
Therefore, in Chicago, and New York, and San Fran-
cisco, and London, and Paris, and Constantinople, and
B, ome fa truth, in all the great cities of the planet the
song of Bethlehem is sung because a little child could not
be hid.
Ill
After Bethlehem, He could not be taken from the
world's sight. Study the record again and discount it as
you please, but deal faithfully with the residuum. The
reckless Herod pronounced his decree of butchery. The
wee children were hidden in their graces and thus became
what Prudentius called the "blossoms of martyrdom."
But there was one Babe that could not be placed in an
[66]
EBWIST HOLT HUGHES
unknown grave. Some kind of an angel said it and led
the way into some kind of an Egypt. The country of the
Nile had no waters that were deep enough to drown him ;
no deserts that were vast enough to envelop him; no
siroccos turgid enough to smother him ; no Sphinx silent
enough to keep his secret; no Pharaoh powerful enough
to take the scepter from an infant's hand. Out of all
kinds of Egypts God called his Son that the hiding of his
glory should be made manifest in the whole earth.
The conspiracy of happenings for the secreting of
Christ continued. If events could have gotten together to
plan certainly for shutting him from the world's eyes,
how could they have done better? He was carried back
into little and despised Nazareth. As it was not great
David's town, perhaps it would succeed in doing what
Bethlehem appeared unable to do draw the curtains of
obscurity about a Boy and bury Mm in its own insignifi-
cance. Since the village had won for itself a proverb of
contempt, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?"
perhaps it could now redeem itself in the esteem of wicked
silencers, if it saw to it that the Best Thing came not out
at all! For twelve years the Sun it obscured. Then it
flashes for a moment before the doctors in the Temple,
but sinks down again behind the Galilean hills to remain
in apparent eclipse for long years more. We call them
"the hidden years," the years of obscurity. But the
searching eye can see a carpenter shop ; the listening ear
can hear the sound of a hammer; the attentive heart can
discern strange communings. Those voiceless years still
tell their story the story of the sacredness of filial obe-
[67]
THE UNHIDDEN" CHEIST
dience, of symmetrical growth, of honest toil. So it was
that a derided town, and a poor cottage, and a rough
shop, and a workman's garb did not screen him from the
gaze of the world. The final herald came at last, a man
who had one work to do, one message to give, one Person
to proclaim crying out insistently, "There cometh One
after me." "The Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Get
ready for the King." Jesus came forth from Nazareth
village to journey to Jerusalem and to make the capital of
his people's hearts the center and joy of the whole earth.
IV
Men still say that geography is a great factor in
history. Doubtless place has obscured more than one large
life. Yet there lived One who could not be hidden by a
gazeteer! He spent his brief active years on earth in a
small and distant province, quite away from the beaten
paths of travel, and in size about like one of our smallest
American commonwealths. He did not dwell in what men
would call a "pivotal state" from which the candidates for
honor and ruler ship are usually selected. His own people
were in political bondage, their monarch being appointed
by a foreign power. It would seem that the stage on which
Jesus moved was only a miniature, as if the leading actor
in the world's supreme drama could never be beheld from
afar. Can men in the rest of the world look over the tops
of those Galilean mountains and see him? Or will he
have some strange power of staying there in body, and of
traveling everywhere in spirit? Both questions may be
answered with affirmatives especially the second. The
[68]
EDWIN HOLT HUGHES
rocks and mountains of his native section could not con-
fine him. Assuredly it could be said that the old prophet's
figure of speech was truer that a Rock cut out of one
of those mountains without hand came at length to fill the
whole earth.
As it was with geography, so was it also with the more
subtle process of concealment. Men still ask, "How came
it that Christ has such slight mention In the contemporary
literature of his day? Why did not Seneca and others
speak of him?" The questioners should be careful lest the
weapon of their argument cut their own hands. Granting
freely that there was no literary conspiracy and that the
writers of the time did not deliberately plan an omission,
it is still true that they could not hide him by their silence.
One portion of his credential is this : That leaving no per-
sonal books to the world, and bequeathing to men only
that unknown manuscript written on the forgetful sands
of the earth, he has still escaped from the hiding of his
own silence and has become the largest figure in literary
publicity. If we widen our inquiry, we only widen our
marvel. Caesar builded an empire, and you could hear the
tramping of his legions both on continents and in com-
mentaries. Alexander built an empire, and you could
hear the pounding of his colossal hammers to the rims of
the known earth. They were noisy builders, or vociferous
destroyers ! But Jesus built in quietness. No thunder-
ing regiments made known the Captain of Salvation. His
Temple, like that of Solomon, was erected without the
sound of tools! Truly the argument does turn against
its users. The silent builder builded more and better than
F691
THE UNHIDDEN" CHRIST
did the prophets of noise- The penless Man evoked a
literature that has carried his fame to the uttermost parts
of the earth. The world is now, for the most part, silent
about the authors who were silent about him. In the
absence of contemporary literary mention, "He could not
be hid."
So violence tried its power where silence failed. Social
and institutional force sought to put him out of the
world's sight. Scribes and Pharisees brought their re-
ligious influence to bear upon the minds of the people and
sought to entomb him in their prejudices, and to conceal
him beneath their scorn. They turned verbal powers
against him, called him names, identified his good deeds
with evil spirits, charged him with insanity, poured upon
him accusations of blasphemy. But he emerged the more
through aU their words, and they found that, in spite of
the vocabularies of abuse, "He could not be hid,"
They were driven finally to the last resource of the
desperate. Since all else seemed to be failing they turned
to physical violence. Without the walls of Jerusalem
they erected a Cross. Upon rude beams of wood they
placed his form. As if more surely to put him beyond the
gaze of men they put a thief on either side, even as they
placed Roman soldiers in front. Yet the very men that
were intended to hide him began to reveal him. The peni-
tent thief called him Lord. The centurion said, "Truly
this was the Son of God." Some of the persecutors them-
selves became involuntary preachers and cried out the un-
[701
EDWIN" HOLT HUGHES
intended but blessed truth, "He saved others." The hill
upon which they placed their deadly tree began to lift
itself 5 until it became the highest mountain peak in all the
earth. The crowds had gone back to the city, saying,
"Now we have thrust him away, and men shall not see
him more." How mistaken they were! Calvary looked
like the final hiding place! Instead, it became the final
revealing place! He himself had said, "And I, if I be
lifted up, will draw all men unto me." O holy prophet
of thine own passion, what wondrous truth thou didst thus
speak ! In the Acts of the Apostles there is a peculiar and
penetrating statement that may not accurately bear this
interpretation, "to whom he showed himself alive after
his passion." On the Cross Jesus came to the most sub-
lime revenge of the ages ! The hiding act became the re-
vealing drama! By the most marvelous magic in the
world's long history the dark Cross became a radiant
throne. Directly millions began to sing
"In the Cross of Christ I glory,
Towering o'er the wrecks of time.
All the light of sacred story
Gathers round its head sublime."
We march into the very darkness of Golgotha itself that
we may the more surely proclaim, "He could not be hid."
The effort of the Cross was supplemented by the effort
of the Grave. Dead men tell no tales if only you can keep
them buried. The tomb is often an effective hiding place.
Scores of lives, unknown to us all, lie buried yonder ; thou-
sands of secrets are folded beneath the sod. They took the
THE UNHIDDEN CHEIST
body of Christ away and laid it in the granite prison.
Over the doorway they rolled a rock so vast that it needed
mo cement. Around about they stationed the Roman sol-
diers who dared not sleep on duty lest they themselves
should sleep in quickly made graves. They looked at the
triple security of that Arimathean cave and said: "Now
we have hidden him. How can men find one who is
buried?" An unseen hand broke the seal of the tomb; an
unseen form passed the diligent sentry; and the One who
had been put beyond publicity in the very midnight of the
earth came forth to stand in the glare of a world and to
say, "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I
am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell
and death." It was not possible for him to be holden or
hidden of death. Born in a cave which could not conceal
him, he was buried in a cave which could not hide him.
Above a manger, and above a desert, and above a cottage,
and above a shop, and above a village, and above a prov-
ince, and above a Church, and above a State, and above a
Cross, and above a Tomb, we write with growing emphasis,
"He could not be hid."
VI
Coming back for a time and standing in the company
of his own, he broke at length the dome of the sky and
went up through the clouds over Bethany. Is it not mere-
ly the exchange of an upper grave for a lower? Will not
the blue of that high ocean sink him into the invisible and
forgotten? It does not so prove. His going seemed to
insure his wider coming. Ascending on high he led cap-
[72]
EDWIN HOLT HUGHES
tivity the more captive and from spiritual heights gave
greater gifts to men. He moved the center of worship
from Jerusalem and placed it everywhere, as if he were
giving the fullest meaning to his promise to the sinful
woman at the well and had for all ages delocalized prayer
and devotion. Beyond all sties, denser than the density
of impenetrable mist, "He could not be hid."
Since he himself had gone beyond the reach of their
fury, his enemies turned their attention to his followers.
They put his witnesses rapidly to death so that they
might not appear for him before the court of the world.
They killed all save one of the Twelve Apostles* thinking
that, if they could hide them, they would hide him too.
Around martyr fires they boasted, "We shall conceal his
messengers in the flames, and so shall we conceal Mm."
Their very first attempt failed. Thinking to hide the face
of Stephen, they only revealed the face of Christ, until
the holder of their clothes became the possessor of the
seamless robe. The first martyrdom gave Him the great-
est Apostle. Thomas Fuller's comment on the death of
Wycliffe, and of the later madness that exhumed his body
and cast his ashes on the "little river,* 5 needed no poetic
license when made over into verses
"The Avon to the Severn runs.
The Severn to the Sea,
And "Wycliffe's dust is scattered far,
Wide as its waters be."
This represents the history of all attempts to hide Christ
by the hiding of his confessors. The proverb, "The blood
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THE tnSTHIDBEN CHBIST
of the martyrs is the seed of the Church," has behind it a
long history which proves that in the houses of a million
deaths Jesus Christ could not be buried. Not only did he
come out of his own grave in radiant power, but he has so
emerged from the graves of his followers until the records
have been compelled to note that, whether in the arena
where the lions roared, or in the prisons where instru-
ments of torture wrought, or at the stakes where flames
made their terrible requiem, he brought back again into
fresh and tragic meaning the incidental word of the gos-
pel, "He could not be hid.' 5
VII
If these coarser brutalities have never availed to put
Christ beyond observation, it is equally true that other
forms of efforts, supposedly more refined, have failed.
What Julian the apostate could not do with the sword,
Celsus could not do with the pen. When physical perse-
cution had proved itself a limitless folly, and even a re-
action in favor of his faith, arguments took up the contest
against him. Yet somehow he produced more books than
his enemies more powerful books too. Wherever he
went libraries and colleges went; and the more free his
path the more certain they were to come. It was not a
Celsus who gave us Harvard and Yale and William and
Mary ! When men sought to hide Him beneath pamphlets
and books, he seemed to come near to changing John's
magnificent hyperbole into literary fact : "There are many
other things which Jesus did, the which, if they could be
written, every one, I suppose that not even the world
[74]
EDWIN" HOLT HUGHES
could contain the books that should be written." From
amid all their literature he emerges, while they themselves
find their own contentions concealed beneath the literature
that he stimulated. Even here we have a right to repeat
the refrain, "He could not be hid."
Beyond this, the variations of these victorious mono-
syllables are almost endless. When institutionalism
sought to hide him and to claim a mighty monopoly of
his grace and power, he broke from an ecclesiasticism made
of iron and started Luther to singing
"And though this world, with devils filled,
Should threaten to undo us;
We will not fear, for God hath willed
His truth to triumph through us.
The prince of darkness grim
We tremble not for Mm;
His rage we can endure,
For lo I his doom is sure 3
One little word shall f ell Mm."
Where ecclesiasticism was foiled, sacerdotalism in yet an-
other way could not hold him in the hiding of forms.
Could not altars, and incense, and bells, and uniforms, and
proclamations of magic make a grave more dangerous
than that of Joseph's cave? But Calvin, and Robinson,
and Wesley, and a hundred and one Mayflower pilgrims
cried out, "Loose him and let him go" and a historical
miracle greater than that of Lazarus, or of his own
physical conquest of the grave, proved once more that
He could not be hid."
[75]
THE UNHIDDEN CHKIST
VIII
It remains now to ask the question, Why has it been
impossible to hide Christ? Why did all efforts fail the
proclamation of Csesar, the decree of Herod, the manger
cradle, the width of Egypt, the contempt of Nazareth, the
obscurity of Judea, the scorn of the Pharisees, the hideous-
ness of the cross, the depth of a tomb, the height of a sky,
the martyrdom of his believers, the arguments of the skep-
tical, the authority of ecclesiasticisms, the superstitions
of sacerdotalism why did they all fail to hide Christ?
Doubtless the incident that evoked the text tells us why.
"He could not be hid" because he was needed. When he
went into that house and closed the door and shut him-
self into its secrecy, there was one in the throng who
needed him so much that she could not have defeat. "He
could not be hid, for a certain woman, whose young daugh-
ter had an unclean spirit, heard of him, and came and fell
at his feet." Having learned of his sympathy and power,
she penetrated to his hiding place, and the very room that
was his hiding became his revealing. The world has moved
on for nearly nineteen hundred years, but it has never
found that the past, over which it claims its flattering
improvement, has been able to conceal the Lord. Mod-
erns, we seek an Ancient One. Occidentals, we seek an
Oriental. Scientists, we seek a Mystic. You cannot
permanently hide him behind the shifting opinions of
laboratories ; neither can you hide him beneath the scorn-
ful and smart phrases of American and English intelli-
gentsia. We believe that we can make for him what some
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EDWIN HOLT HUGHES
of the more thoughtful would call a greater claim. Secu-
larism and materialism cannot hide him. We may pile
our dangerous treasures high about him, until the fol-
lowers of Simon Magus may seem about to accomplish
what the followers of Demetrius could not achieve. But
you cannot forever hide Christ in commercial vaults.
Some day he will snap their bolts and commandeer their
contents by his gracious persuasion. In every Christmas
season the streets are filled with those who go on his
kindly errands. In spite of all that we may say about a
formal and conventional Christmas, Bethlehem for the
time is greater than Chicago, or Boston, or New York.
Jesus is not wholly concealed by the millions of parcels
and bundles with which our mails are burdened. His very
name is written into the day Christmas, Christ-mass! In
some vast measure he flings his glory down long centuries
and across great seas. The house in the North Coasts
could not hide him ; neither can the modern world. Our
need of him is too great. We are weary, and he promises
rest. We are sorrowful, and he promises consolation.
We are transient, and he promises eternal life. We are
sinful, and he promises strength. We need him ! We need
him; and because our souls know their own there is no
hiding place for the Son of Man and Son of God. And,
as was the case there in the regions of Tyre and Sidon,
our children need him. The devils that threaten them
can be conquered only by his power. Like that ancient
parent, we will seek him and find him, that we may see
the new generation, claimed by his sanity, his grace, his
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THE UNHIDDEN CHBIST
strength, his love. We change the tense of the text and
say it in unwavering confidence, "He cannot be hid."
And yet! And yet! And yet! Is this all? Is every-
thing the story of his escape? Let us see. We have
said that he is the Sun of Righteousness. Who can pluck
God's central light out of its place? A candle may be
hid under a bushel. A small hand may break the current
that feeds the electric flame. A wee cloud may dim the
gleam of a star. But what covering can hide the sun?
What hand can stop the flow that gives its radiance?
What clouds can shut out its shining from the earth?
After rains, and mists, and snows have done their most,
after a pall has lain for days over a darkened world, the
final victory is with the sun.
But is it necessarily so with you, O brother of mine?
Christ will not hide himself from you. Will you hide
yourself from Christ? Sometimes we must all think that
the change in the scientific doctrine of astronomy is a
symbol of the change in theological faith. In the Ptole-
maic days men said that winter and night came because
the sun turned away from the earth; in the Copernican
days we are assured that night and winter come because
the earth turns away from the sun. Is it so, soul of
mine? Can I in a measure blot out the sun by shutting
my eyes and living in self-imposed blindness ? Can I prove
that I love darkness rather than light, and seek some self-
created dungeon into whose triple midnight the light of
Christ can scarcely come? Can he visit my town where
another eager soul finds him, and captures the radiance
of his healing love for herself and her children, while I, by
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EDWTNT HOLT HUGHES
stubborn refusals, make for myself a hidden Lord? Even
so ! Even so ! Verily then there is need for that prayer
of Wesley, perhaps unhappily omitted from the later
Hymnal the one that begins, "Christ, whose glory fills
the sky"
"Visit then this soul of mine;
Pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
Fill me. Radiancy divine;
Scatter all my unbelief;
More and more thyself display,
Shining to the perfect day."
For every soul that puts up this petition the record re-
mains forever true, "He could not be hid."
[79]
V
The Warfare of the Spirit
WALTER RUSSELL BOWIE
RECTOR, GRACE EPISCOPAL CHURCH
NEW YORK CITY
WALTER RUSSELL BOWIE was born in
1882 at Richmond, Va. He graduated from
Harvard University with the degrees of B.A.
and M.A. He received the B.D. degree from
the Theological Seminary at Alexandria, Va.
The honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity
was conferred upon him by Richmond College.
He has been rector of Emmanuel Church,
Greenwood, Va., St. Paul's Church, Richmond,
Va., and is at present rector of Grace Church,
New York City.
He served as chaplain of Base Hospital 45
during the World War. He is a member of the
Commission on World Conference on Faith and
Order. He is a trustee of Union Theological
Seminary, New York City, and of Vassar Col-
lege.
He was exchange preacher in England a few
summers ago, preaching in the large cathedrals
of that country. He is a popular university
preacher.
He is the author of many books, some of the
most recent being Some Open Ways to God,
The Inescapable Christ, The Master, and On
Being Alive.
Dr. Bowie is one of the most constructive
thinkers in the Church to-day.
V
THE WARFARE OF THE SPIRIT
WALTER RUSSELL BOWIE
For though we walk in the fleshy we do not
war after the flesh: for the weapons of our war-
fare are not carnal, 'but mighty through God to
the pulling down of strongholds.
2 CORINTHIANS 10: 8, 4.
THERE is something in our human nature which always
vibrates at the sound of those words "our warfare."
Through the long process of their career, men have been
made instinctively combative. Without this instinct of
combat, many of the achievements of the human race
would have been impossible, and only with it can much
that is best in human life be maintained. But the crucial
question is as to the field upon which this combativeness is
to be expressed.
I
First and most obviously, there has been the field of
struggle, which is physical. As far back as we can trace
history, men have periodically been engaged in war. To-
day as never before we perceive the evils in war. The
idealism of the race is girding itself to put an end to this
thing which is now being recognized as a deadly menace to
all civilization. But before we can do that, and indeed in
order that we may do it, it is necessary for us first to
perceive clearly those elements in war which give it so
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THE WABFAKE OF THE SPIRIT
strong a hold .upon men's Imagination. War is evil ; but
its persistence is partly due to the fact that it is not all
evil. It rallies to itself some of those qualities in human
nature which are noblest, and it is essential that we should
see what these are. For the real need of our world is not
sufficiently expressed in the phrase "getting rid of war."
We want not to destroy but to transfigure those qualities
which make a man always potentially a warrior. Our
critical task is to stop fighting on these bloody battle-
fields where our enemies are other men and learn to fight
instead on those moral and spiritual battlefields where our
antagonists are those evils which are the enemies of all
men.
We begin, however, with the kind of warfare which we
have most familiarly known. Let us recognize there those
appeals to the instinct of a fighter which human nature
can never do without.
War, in the first place, presents itself as a great ad-
venture. Quite as much in our modern times, as in earlier
ones, will that appeal be strong. In some respects, even,
it is stronger, for most of our present life seems drably to
lack adventure. We are not pioneers any more, as our
forefathers often were. We are not grappling with the
problems of the frontier, not face to face with the dangers
of the wilderness, not matched with physical obstacles and
odds which call out all our courageous hardihood. In-
stead of that, millions of men go every day about routine
tasks to which they seem to be herded by their life's
necessities as passively as so many sheep. No wonder
that when war comes something long repressed in their
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WAI/TER BTJSSELL BOWIE
spirits may leap with a kind of fierce relief to answer it !
The man who was a bricklayer, the clerk who spent Ms
days at some dreary desk, the shopkeeper behind his coun-
ter, with nobody considering their lives as having any par-
ticular interest, suddenly find themselves clothed in a uni-
form while all the world regards them. They march down
the avenue behind the streaming flags and quickening
music, while tens of thousands shout in the exultancy of a
mass emotion. For the first time in their lives, they are
somebody. For the first time they move in the public eye
and are a part of the main stream of their country's en-
thusiasm and energy. They do not know yet what war
will be like; but they know that it is exciting. They
have been taken out of their little corners and their little
tasks and made a part of something great.
As war enlists the adventurous in men, so also it may
arouse the heroic. The man who goes to battle sooner or
later has to learn to conquer the timidity of his own flesh.
He has got to learn to forget his comfort, his safety, his
life itself in this desperate business to which he will be com-
mitted. He will see a great deal of beastliness ; but even
in the worst of it he will conceive a new respect for those
qualities in human nature of himself and of others which
can make men go on day by day enduring the mud and
cold and nastiness of the trenches, submitting to discipline
and obeying orders, climbing out of shelter and going
straight into gunfire and the likelihood of death in short,
forcing his body every day to endure and to dare in a way
which makes him know that even his own ordinary self is
making a decent go at courage. And now and then he
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THE WABFAKE OF THE SPIRIT
will see some man not unlike himself rise to some superb
act of reckless valor which is unmistakably heroic. He
watches that, and he feels a kind of reflected pride in his
own manhood that this was possible. At the last meeting
of the Church Congress, one of the speakers would have
been welcomed with polite attention had he been intro-
duced as the Bishop of Southern Ohio ; but the eyes of all
people in the crowded room looked up with new attention
when that young and striking figure, speaking now on the
affirmative side of the question, "Does Christ Teach Paci-
fism?" was introduced as formerly a Major of the Three
Hundred and Sixty-Fifth Infantry and was a wearer of
the Distinguished Service Cross "for extraordinary hero-
ism in action." Something in us always thrills to recog-
nize the man who, when put to the test, has proven that
he will not be afraid, and, danger or no danger, will carry
out unflinchingly what he sets out to do. And if we seek
a noble expression of the heroic quality which has been
evident in war we may turn to these sentences from a
recent biography of that most romantic cavalry leader of
the nineteenth century, Major-General J. E, B. Stuart,
who at the age of thirty-one received his mortal wound as
he rode at the head of his charging squadrons. "All his
life was fortunate. It was given to him to toil greatly,
and to enjoy greatly, and to taste no little fame from the
works of his hands, and to drink the best of the cup of
living. . . . He took his death wound in the front of battle,
as he wanted it, and he was granted some brief hours to
press the hands of men who loved him, and to arrange him-
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"WALTER BTJSSEIX BOWIE
self in order, to report before the God of Battles, Whom
he served."
Furthermore, war appeals to men because it simplifies
the issue. We bargain and hesitate, and seldom fling
ourselves with superb hazard into some difficult and costly
enterprise. But war reveals how men can rise to this more
unreckoning devotion. This is the reason why so many
men were happy in the war and were actually at a loss
when it was over and they had to come back to the more
complicated conditions of peace. Their choices were uni-
fied. There was a neck-ornothing spirit about war which
became a man's strength after he had accepted it. It
was difficult at first to accustom himself to war condi-
tions ; but once he had adopted discomfort and danger as
a matter of course, and once he was accustomed to no
other expectation than that of taking hold of the hard
thing and carrying it through, he began to feel this dras-
tic commitment putting iron into his blood.
Also, at its highest war may realize even though with-
in its own arbitrary limits the forgetfulness of self in a
glorious devotion to a larger cause. One may go and look
at the statue of Nathan Hale in the City Hall Park, New
York, and read upon its pedestal those words which voice
that spirit of devotion at its highest. Standing with his
hands tied behind him, and facing his own lonely and
ignominious death as a spy, Nathan Hale said: "I only
regret that I have but one life to give for my country."
In every war men have willingly given their lives for their
country and for their comrades. They have gone upon
forlorn ventures like that expedition made up of volun-
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THE WABFABE OF THE SPIBIT
teers from the British navy, all of them enlisted upon the
explicit declaration that few or none of them could be
expected to come back, who set sail upon the ships which
they were deliberately to sink and block the mouth of the
German submarine base at Zeebrugge. They have marched
out like the immortal brigade of Pickett at Gettysburg
to storm the heights of Cemetery Ridge; and they
have ridden, like the six hundred at Balaklava, "into the
mouth of hell." They have gone out, as many a man did in
the World War, into no man's land to bring in a wounded
comrade ; or, being in command, they have led a group of
men through the zone of fire into their own lines, and have
said simply, as one sergeant mortally wounded in France
in 1918 said to me, "I was certainly proud that none of
the other boys got hurt." Self-forgetfulness like that has
been the white flower which blossoms out of the red horror
of war.
For war is fundamentally horrible. It may enlist and
utilize for its own ends the noblest qualities of men ; but its
own essential quality is devilish. It begins as the great
adventure, but before long that adventure turns into a
treadmill where the iron hoofs of stupid cruelty go tram-
pling out the lives of men. It seems to call for heroes,
and often the morally heroic in men makes answer; but
what it really calls for is hatred and ferocity and all the
brutal instincts which human nature supposedly has
tamed. It gives men the terrible power of concentration
on a single issue, but this issue on which they concentrate
is death. It adorns itself with the beauty of men's un-
selfishness, but it wears this like a plume upon a helmet
[88]
WAI/TEE BUSSEIX BOWIE
which surmounts a grinning skull. The chivalry of human
nature is not a consistent part of war. It is the noble in-
consistency which men carry with them in spite of war.
It is not the business of war to make men generous or
merciful. It is war's business to make them merciless.
From the standpoint of war, the only ideal soldier is the
ideally effective killer. He is the decent man bred back
into the savage until he is ready as a bayonet instructor
whom a friend of mine once encountered in the World
War said he wanted every man he taught to be ready
"if he met his own mother wearing a German helmet to
run his bayonet through her breast." War inhibits the
best and unleashes the worst. It organizes its deliberate
propaganda of lies. It manufactures the mass hatred
which will enable whole nations to permit such organized
cruelties as to the normal spirit would be impossible. It
regiments humanity into an orgy of insane destruction
from which neither armies nor whole populations can get
free, until at last they lie like wounded animals too weak
from loss of blood to lunge any longer at each other's
throats. Then when the war is over, and the maddened
passions cool, and the higher spirit of mankind begins to
recover its clear consciousness, it understands how all
the lofty motives to which war speciously appealed have
been dragged down and made slaves of evil.
II
But it is not only in war that the combative elements
in humanity can be called into expression. They may be
enlisted in the activities of modem business; and here
[89]
THE WABFAEE OF THE SPIRIT
again we need to disentangle impulses which are essen-
tially noble from the ignoble ends to which they may be
put.
For multitudes of men business is the great adventure.
War may be a more exciting interlude ; but wars are oc-
casional, and business is constant. It is upon the strug-
gles and successes of business that much of the attention of
our time is concentrated. The man who achieves is re-
warded by the open admiration or by the scarcely less
flattering envy of the multitude. To win a great place in
the business world is to have become a person of power,
and the pursuit of power is the quest to which the modern
spirit thrills. A boy comes out of college, or enters the
commercial world through some other door. To his
thought it is like an arena in which the strongest and
most resolute will survive. He has no ill will toward his
competitor, but neither will he have much imagination con-
cerning him. His mind is on the struggle and the prizes
of it. He has entered upon a bold hazard, and his blood
stirs with the instinct to keep the sword of his own pow-
ers sharp, and to fight his way ahead.
Sometimes also this whole world of practical affairs
of business, or commerce, or industrial development calls
for qualities which are heroic. Here is some huge natural
obstacle to be overcome. Here are difficulties of organiza-
tion which seem insuperable. Here are stubborn problems
which have defied the best knowledge and skill hitherto
available. The ordinary man will accept these impedi-
ments as being impossibilities. But the rare man will not.
He has the kind of courage which is roused by difficulty.
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WAITER ETJSSELL BOWIE
He has the self-discipline of body, mind, and spirit which
can enable him to bring to a problem a concentrated en-
ergy which to most people would be unthinkable. When
he does great things, people will explain them by saying
that he has the brain of a genius, but a more primal
reason is that he has the heart of a fighter. He has been
capable of that extra thrust of courage which gives to a
man's energies the irresistible impact of the heroic. By
men of that spirit the transcontinental railroads have been
built, the tunnels have been driven under the Hudson
River, the fleets of modern aeroplanes have been developed
from the lonely and derided experiments of the pioneers.
Unnumbered things which the world laughed at have been
carried forward to success, and young men entering the
business world know this. They realize that there are
advances still to be achieved by those who will dare to
push out beyond the crowd, and the fact that this is so
challenges in their natures all that is intrepid.
Business also may give to a man's energies that same
sort of concentration which war can give, for business
often does assume a strenuousness and a drastic authority
comparable to war. A man must be willing to sacrifice or
postpone his secondary interests. "Nothing but business"
was a sign which at one time used to be placed in certain
executive offices; and though it is usually regarded now
as a better- policy to remove those curtly printed words,
it remains true that many business men carry upon their
faces a no less unmistakable sign of "nothing but busi-
ness." They are impatient of anything which seems to
them irrelevant. They have no time for small amenities.
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THE WABFARE OF THE SPIRIT
In any conversation they must drive straight to what they
think is the practical point, deal with it sharply, and pass
on. Their lives may be losing many of the gentler satis-
factions to which they might be sensitive ; but they do not
know that yet. They are feeling the powerful impulsion
of one strong central urge, and in the simplification of
their interests there is undoubted power.
At its best, the business world may give scope for men
to forget themselves in a larger loyalty. Men are seldom
pressing their advantage exclusively as individuals. Al-
most always they belong to some group or union, or cor-
porate organization, in which their own interests are
merged with the interests of others. Sometimes a man so
identifies himself with the welfare of the larger group
that his own particular fortunes seem insignificant in com-
parison. Many men to-day are bearing their heaviest
load of anxiety, not on account of themselves, but on ac-
count of others who are dependent upon their leadership.
They know that, if the business for which they are re-
sponsible fails, although they themselves might be able to
live on their savings, hundreds of people whom they have
employed will be faced with immediate economic peril and
a future full of fear. It would be a golden book that
would be written if any one could gather and inscribe the
names of those men, responsible as executives and di-
rectors for business organizations to-day, who knowingly
have seen profits diminish and deliberately have accepted
great risks in order to keep the business going, though to
their own disadvantage, in order that their employees
might not be turned adrift. Where such things have been
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WALTER RUSSELL BOWIE
true, business itself has been true to the finest instincts of
the human heart.
But when all this has been said, we know that there is
another side of the picture. Business does enlist much
that is most virile and admirable in our contemporary gen-
eration; but it enlists these for ends which, though not
crudely destructive like those of war, are yet chaotic and
distracted. Business as we have known it in our modern
world has too often been a confused melee of forces which
have never learned to be creative, an unlighted battlefield
"where ignorant armies clash by night."
A few years ago in America any criticism of the spirit
and method of our business would have been received with
impatience, or rather it would have been laughed aside by
men who went upon their way exultant with the heady
wine of their seemingly invincible success. But now there
is a different mood. Something has happened to the busi-
ness world in which the rich prizes of success once seemed
so sure. We know that much of what we did achieve was
snatched haphazard. The gravest charge against modern
business, which is now facing its inescapable indictment, is
this: that the business world has never stopped to frame
any intelligent philosophy of its own purpose. It has fol-
lowed opportunism and shortsighted expediency. It has
crudely assumed that if everyone went on instinctively
struggling for his own advantage, by some benevolent mir-
acle the welfare of all would be advanced. Was it not true
that the chief energies of the strongest men were enlisted in
business enterprise? Was it not true that the lure of the
business world was summoning each year the most ambi-
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THE "WAHFAEE OF THE SPIRIT
tious and aggressive spirits of youth? How was it pos-
sible that business, which captured so much that was
admirable, could be other than admirable itself? But we
are forced to recognize that in its wide aspects it has not
been admirable. It has gone blundering along, the blind
leading the blind, until the whole company is in imminent
danger of falling into the ditch.
"If therefore the light that is in thee be darkness, how
great is that darkness," said Jesus in one of those im-
mortal sayings which pursue us until at last we recognize
what they mean. The light by which modern business has
too frequently guided itself seemed clear enough to mental
shrewdness; but there was a moral darkness in it which
was bound sooner or later to bring on an eclipse. That
light was self-interest. This self-interest, it was supposed,
could illuminate the whole field of practical affairs. There
were inconsistencies in this belief, as we have already seen,
just as there were inconsistencies in war. In many in-
stances men have brought a magnificent unselfishness into
business; but, in general, it has been self-interest upon
which business has depended to fight its way ahead. If
any one doubts this, let him reflect upon the kind of talk
which frequently is heard in Congress when any such mat-
ters as international trade and tariff s are discussed. There
is little conception then of a solidarity of interests among
all nations; instead there is crass and unashamed schem-
ing as to how our own nations may get rich and stay rich,
no matter at what cost to other peoples, and as to the
measure of armament which will need to be maintained to
keep us safe in a world of universal selfishness. Or let him
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WALTER RUSSELL BOWIE
who is still uncertain consider the difficulty which men
of good will in any industrial conflict always find if they
try to frame agreements which will cure industrial ex-
cesses and injustices. Nearly always there will be an in-
tractable group who will refuse to enter into any
agreement if by remaining independent they can gain some
unscrupulous advantage. And the strength of their posi-
tion lies in the fact that, when they are doing what they
individually think is profitable, they are doing what the
prevailing business morality gives them in the last resort
the right to do. What informed man is there who will
not in this time acknowledge that our modern world of
business, notwithstanding the spiritual capacities inherent
in many of the men who adorn it, is yet in itself unspir-
itualized? In the everyday realm of what we call our
practical affairs, it is a hard thing for a man to carry his
religion into all he does. He knows that the motives and
sanctions of the work he begins on Monday are not always
consistent with the ideals he has recognized on Sunday.
The finer the man is, the more troubled he may b^ by this
division which cuts across his personality. He loves ad-
venture. He honors courage. He feels the dignity of
doing something with disciplined thoroughness. And he
wants to be loyal to something infinitely larger than his
own self. He wants to be a servant of the Kingdom of
God. Yet he knows at the same time that this acquisitive
society which we have created will not let Mm. He can
carry his shrewdest abilities into his business; but he
knows that he cannot carry into it always that part of his
own sotd which he knows is his best. And if that is true
[95]
THE WAEFAKE OF THE SPIEIT
of the man who is an immediate part of our money-making
and our value-producing system, it is true also of all the
rest of us who are its beneficiaries. For something is
wrong in this twisted world which we have created. Our
finest aptitudes are harnessed to unworthy ends. The
vigor and courage of human spirits are monopolized by the
sort of struggle which is not sufficiently worth the win-
ning. The fighting spirit of our human nature is penned
into an arena which is not worthy of the greatness of its
soul.
Ill
Where then ought our real warfare to be? It ought to
be on the battle ground of a moral and spiritual struggle
against enemies which are evil in themselves and which
corrupt life wherever they can touch it. We have a
higher task than that of killing men in physical war. We
have a higher task than that of overthrowing competitors
and capturing material rewards in mercenary matters.
Our business is to release that idealism which is partly
expressed in military or in industrial struggle and conse-
crate this to the warfare of the spirit.
I know that when we begin to talk thus we shall seem
to some to be moving into a realm of shadows. People
understand well enough the fascination of physical war.
They understand also the fascination of our everyday
material competition. They know what it means to see
advantage and courage and determination let loose in
these. It is not so easy to imagine or to dramatize a war-
fare in the realm of principles, but that is what the Church
[96]
WAI/TEB BUSSELL BOWIE
must help us do. It must furnish the great company of
men and women who with illumined imagination will see
the meaning of the moral and spiritual warfares which are
challenging our time, will recognize those who wear the
uniform of this warfare, will honor all quiet heroism
when they see it, and by their recognition will encourage
and fortify every soul which is setting its face toward the
crucial battle upon which the destiny of life depends. For,
as that great battler of the spirit, the Apostle Paul, has
written: "Though we walk in the flesh, we do not war
after the flesh: for the weapons of our warfare are not
carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of
strongholds. 5 '
And now, finally and particularly, what are the strong-
holds which we must assail in this spiritual war which
alone can completely enlist and completely glorify the
adventurousness, the valor, and the devotion of mankind?
There are three. There is the stronghold of indiffer-
ence, whose banner is "Don't Care." There is the strong-
hold of ignorance, whose banner is "Don't Know." And
there is the stronghold of cowardice, whose banner is
"Don't Dare." These three citadels in the midst of human
life dominate much of what ought to be the beautiful, free
country of our energies, and they must be assailed and
overthrown if we are to know the full possibilities of the
human spirit.
As long as the stronghold of indifference stands un-
conquered, our idealism, both public and private, is
paralyzed. We have imagined as a nation that we could
shut ourselves up within the walls of our unconcern for
[97]
THE "WAUFASE OF THE SPIRIT
the fates of the rest of the earth. We were rich, we
thought; we were separate, and we were self-sufficient.
Why should we trouble ourselves with plans either eco-
nomic or political for the advancement of the general
human welfare when our own particular welfare was al-
ready so highly satisfactory? And in our private mat-
ters we have been prone to ask the same question. Men
who were busy making money in their own business were
not urgently concerned with far-reaching social results.
They did not have the interest, and they told themselves
that they did not have the time, to deal with such ques-
tions as child labor or the human consequences of work-
ing conditions in mines and steel mills and cotton fac-
tories ; or the whole complicated matter of a just distribu-
tion of profits and the prevention of grossly excessive
plunder, which ultimately had to be paid for by the man
with the little wage ; or the ominous unrest of millions of
workers with insecurity of employment and their increas-
ing dependence upon the property-owning class. Many
of us as Christians have vaguely felt that the whole realm
of our practical energies was in danger of being dominated
by motives which had little to do either with justice or with
mercy. The time has come when we have got to be con-
cerned with that. We cannot let the castle of cynical in-
difference, with which the whole spirit of materialism has
confronted religion, go unchallenged. We dare not let it
appear that politics and business are independent of re-
ligion. Whenever there rises the stronghold of the ar-
rogant indifference which defies the right of high spir-
ituality to pervade the whole of life, that stronghold must
[98]
WALTER EUSSELL BOWIE
be destroyed. It is to such a crusade that the best in us
as Christian men and women is -summoned now.
In the same fashion we must deal with the stronghold
of ignorance, whose flag is "Don't Know." There are
many people who would care about evils in our present
civilization if they knew. There are many others who do
know that the evils exist but excuse themselves by saying
that they do not know how to move against them. It is
quite true that our problems in this time are exceedingly
complex and baffling. Many of our ablest executives, both
political and economic, are confessedly bewildered* But
there is a difference between being ignorant and being
inertly willing to stay ignorant. To-day, as seldom be-
fore, there is urgency in that command of Jesus, "Thou
shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy mind." As
Christian individuals, as men in conversation with other
men, as members of the Church and responsible ultimate-
ly for its corporate mind, it is our business now to try to
think more clearly than we have ever done before as to
what the application of Christian standards to our prac-
tical life will mean and will require. To do that, will be no
easy matter. It will be an adventure of the intellect, less
dramatic but infinitely more important than physical war.
It will require great heroism and unselfishness. For the
men who do that pioneer thinking, it will mean collision
with old prejudices. It may mean the misunderstanding
and irritation of their friends. Men do not like to be
compelled to think, especially when that thinking may
prove costly to their interests. But, either voluntarily or
by the draft, the army of thinkers has got to be recruited
[99]
THE WAJEtFAEE OF THE SPIRIT
now if our civilization would be saved. We must storm
the gates of the castle of ignorance and tear down the flag
which proclaims Its humiliating dominion of "Don't
Know."
Finally* there is the stronghold of cowardice, whose
banner is "Don't Dare. 5 ' One pathetic feature of our
time is the collapse of confidence. A few years ago there
was nothing which our practical men thought they could
not do. Now they are wondering whether anything can
be done. They are overawed by fears with which they
cannot seem to grapple. Like Christian in Pilgrim's Prog-
ress, they are in imminent danger of being flung into the
dungeon of the castle of "Giant Despair. 5 * But here su-
premely the trumpet note of religion must be heard* The
resiliency of our human spirit is not broken. The mag-
nificent assets of our human energies are not less great
than they ever were. In the souls of men which so often
have risen to their physical crises, there is enough of the
spirit of adventure, enough heroism, and enough devotion
to face our intellectual and moral problems and to destroy
the doubts which paralyze us now. Against the castle of
cowardice there needs to be a rallying of all those who
will not endure to be told they do not dare.
So, not to no war, but to greater war, are we called
to-day away from the old wars of violence and greed,
away from wars against men ? to a war against the spir-
itual enemies of man. To that war all that is valiant in
the human soul is summoned, that it may be mighty
through God to the pulling down of whatever strongholds
have hindered the freedom of our fullest life*
[100]
VI
A Stubborn Fcdfh
IVAN LEE HOLT
MINISTER, ST. JOHN*S METHODIST EPISCOPAL
CHURCH, SOUTH, ST. LOUIS, MO.
IVAN LEE HOLT was born in 1886 at De-
Witt, Ark. He graduated from VanderbUt
University with the degree of A,B. He re-
ceived the Doctor of Philosophy degree from the
University of Chicago. The honorary degrees
of Doctor of Divinity and Doctor of Laws have
been conferred upon him. He has traveled and
studied in Europe,
He was ordained in the Methodist ministry.
He has been pastor of University Church, St.
Louis, and Centenary Church, Cape Girardean.
He was professor of Old Testament Literature
at Southern Methodist University. He is now
pastor of St. John's Church in St. Louis.
He has been a lecturer at the University of
Texas and the University of Missouri. He has
been a member of the General Conference of
the Southern Methodist Church, and also of the
Ecumenical Methodist Conference, He was the
representative of the Methodist Episcopal
Church, South, at the Union of Methodist
Churches in England in 1932.
He is one of the most popular preachers in
his denomination. He is in constant demand for
commencement addresses.
VI
A STUBBORN FAITH
IYA3T LEE HOLT
But if not, be it known unto thee, Mng,
that we mil not serve thy gods.
DANIEL 3: 18.
ANY faith which, survives these days of pessimism and
cynicism must be a reasonable faith. In contrasting faith
and knowledge a man once said, "Faith is believing what
you know is not so." We have had too much faith of that
sort. I know people who say with reference to some un-
usual statement in the Bible, "You must accept it as a
statement of fact because it is in the Bible.'* So men
have talked about Jonah and the whale; about Jehovah's
sending a lying spirit into the mouths of certain prophets ;
about the earth's position at the center of the universe in
the Genesis account of creation. The only defensible posi-
tion about the Bible in these days is that it is a progressive
revelation of God; that it has its human touch; that it
must be interpreted under the leadership of the Spirit of
Truth.
In my time there have been at least three readjust-
ments in religious interpretation and thought. They have
come about through the theory of evolution, the historical
approach to the Bible, and the emphasis on social values
and programs. Perhaps now we are being forced by a
fourth, the philosophy of humanism, to a new interpreta-
[103]
A STUBBORN" FAITH
tion o God, or a restatement of our theistic belief. What-
ever the changes, faith must be reasonable, not contrary
to reason. It may go far beyond reason on the same road
reason travels. Protestantism is reason grown courageous
enough to trust and serve. It is not a new form of the
scribe's literal knowledge of a book. It is not the rejec-
tion of sublimity and imaginative splendor in public wor-
ship. It is rather a religion that affirms a historical
foundation, and then a spiritual principle. The historical
foundation is that the Eternal has given us an actual
revelation of his will in Jesus Christ, and the spiritual
principle is that the service of the Eternal, after the
manner of Christ, is direct, immediate, personal. A per-
son, not a rite nor an institution, is the first principle of
Protestant faith. The infinite spirit, the filial soul, the
Christ as living grace and witness of the union of the two
such is our faith. In defending that thesis I think of
myself as standing in the midst of a great universe. I
could tighten my belt, throw out my chest, and whistle to
keep up my courage as I walk out into a universe without
God. But that is not my attitude. I reverently ask
"What?" and "Why?" as I look about me, and seek an-
swers to my questions.
The universe seems to me creative ; it is not a dead mass,
even though there may be dead worlds in it ; it is a living,
vibrant thing, and in successive ages new forms of life
are ever emerging. The universe seems to me rational. I
know there are frightful disasters, and glaring evils, and
unjust sufferings, but it is easier to explain evil in a ra-
tional universe than to explain good in an irrational uni-
[104]
IVAN UEE HOLT
verse. Even if the universe were a machine, no machine is
set up without a mind ; mechanism with all its dogmatism
is in the discard. There seems to be reality that can be
measured and weighed ; there seems to be reality that can
be sensed. By either approach or both one discovers
order, development, growth. Then the universe seems to
me productive of values. I cannot think of a fortuitous
combination of atoms producing such values as goodness,
beauty, and truth. Then finally the universe seems to me
friendly to personality; the terms "personality" and
"personal" may be only symbols, capable of differing in-
terpretations ; but so are mechanism and equation. Those
qualities in my friend which make him the person he is
are the qualities I find in the universe. God is to me
everything I mean by a creative, rational, value-producing,
friendly-to-personality universe and more. I speak of
him as personal because personality is the highest sym-
bol I know.
His personality I find expressing itself in Jesus Christ
in other men also, but most perfectly in Jesus. When
I am asked what God is like I turn to Jesus. The spirit
and mind of Jesus are the finest and most vitalizing in-
fluence the world has known. They must not be too much
confused with creedal statements, or organization, or im-
perfect institutions which have sought to give them form.
As we think of them religion seems to be "the first beauti-
ful companion man meets in his wilderness. It is the
pathway between life and death worn deepest by the feet
of the perpetually seeking generations. It is by man's
side when he walks the high and lonely places where he
[105]
A STUBBORN FAITH
makes the discovery of himself. In life it is with him,
illuminating him at his noblest, scourging him at his
basest. Neither in death does It leave him; but when all
other voices moan of irreparable defeat, it alone lifts the
cry of defiance and stands on the ruins of mortality an-
nouncing mysterious and splendid victory for the fallen."
Faith must be reasonable !
Faith must also be adventurous. One of the great say-
ings of our day is that utterance of a British soldier in
the Great War, "Faith is betting one's life that there is a
God." Carlyle used to say that every man must face one
question. Other questions he might avoid, but this one he
must answer: "Will you be a hero or a coward." The
brave man is the man of faith who looks out into the future
unafraid. Said Jesus, as he faced death, "Father, into
thy hands I commend my spirit." William James used to
tell a story of a fisherman on New England's coast. The
philosopher was talking to the fisherman one day about
the life beyond, and saying: "You are growing old. How
does the future look to you?" Quickly came the answer,
"My gray gull lifts its wings against the nightfall and
takes the dim leagues with fearless eye."
A man must choose which way he will go the way with
God, or the way without God. What puts agnosticism
out of count is that life is a forced option ; a man cannot
postpone; he must choose and that each day. Faith is
not demonstrated knowledge; it is adventure, but it is
glorious adventure. You have probably seen those maps
of the Middle Ages on which the geographer put down all
the continents and lands he knew. Over the great un-
[106]
IVAN LEE HOLT
known and undiscovered regions of the world lie wrote,
"Horrors and monsters/' A Christian adventurer took
these maps and over the same regions wrote "God." The
Bible of that fearless adventurer. Sir John Franklin, had
the words of the Psalmist underscored, "Though I take
the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts
of the sea, behold, thou art there. 53 His life was lost in the
Arctic waters, but on his lips must have been that con-
fession as he died. Faith must be adventurous !
But faith must be not only reasonable and adventurous.
It must be stubborn if it fail not in these days. Where is
God in a time of great disaster? Where is God when
war rages? Where is God when personal sorrows multi-
ply? As I raise these questions I think of the Hebrew
children before the great king in Babylon. They would
not worship the image the king had set up and were to be
cast into a burning, fiery furnace. The king gave them a
chance to repent and change their resolution, asking,
"Who will deliver you out of my hands?" Quickly came
the answer of faith: "Our God will deliver us. But if not,
be it known unto thee, king, that we will not serve thy
gods," Listen to these words, "But if not" They are
the words of stubborn faith. God might not deliver
them; he might let them burn to a crisp in the furnace;
but they would still cling to their faith in him.
In a time of national disaster the faith of Habakkuk,
the prophet, is tested. A horde of barbarians sweeps down
on his land from the north ; towns are destroyed ; innocent
women and children are slain. Where is God? As the
prophet questions the moral government of the universe
[107]
A STUBBORN FAITH
he stands on a lofty height to be near God. "Why,
God?" is the cry wrung from his soul. The answer which
comes back to him is, "The righteous shall live by his
steadfastness." If questions come that one cannot an-
swer and experiences that he cannot understand, there is
nothing for him to do but hold on to his faith with grim
determination. Even more striking is the experience of
Job. He and his friends know a God who always blesses
the righteous and punishes the wicked even in this life.
Job comes to suffering in which he can find no help in the
God he knows. Then with superb daring of soul he ap-
peals from the only God he knows to One who must exist :
"Beyond and above the God I know is another. I know
that my Redeemer lives."
One meets in these modern days some experiences of
stubborn faith. In a Catholic hospital I used to visit a
devout Catholic who had lain in her bed paralyzed for ten
years. I used to stop at her door to catch the smile on
her face.
A great doctor in iny city was stricken with an incur-
able malady. A few days before his death his twelve-year-
old boy was in his room. "Does it hurt much, dad?"
Cf Yes, son, I am afraid it does." "Well, you should worry,
dad. It is a far better place than this to which you are
going, and there is no pain there."
A woman served as visitor and assistant at my church.
Every day for ten years that I was in the city I saw her
in staff conferences. One day she went to the hospital for
an examination, and received her death sentence: "You
have only eighteen months at most to live," said the doctor.
[108]
IVAN LEE HOLT
She did not tell me ; she told none of her friends. Through
the next twelve months all commented on her friendliness
and happiness of manner. There was no bravado, but
there was no wavering. She lived as though years were
before her. A few weeks before her death she went on a
last visit to her sister. As she was returning home on the
train it became evident that she would not live to reach
home. To her daughter, who was with her, she said:
"Take a pencil and write down messages for each member
of the family, and tell my minister that I want no sad
music at my funeral. I would like for the choir to sing
'Fling Wide the Gates.' " When the funeral was over I
said to a brother minister, as I told him the story: "I
could not do it. Can we preach such a faith when we
cannot show such courage? 55 He answered, "We must con-
tinue to preach it if we know anyone who has such faith."
I do not know what tragedies are yours. Perhaps
financial losses have come ; perhaps a friend has grievously
disappointed you; perhaps death and sorrow have come
to your home. Are you crying out of the deeps unto God?
Then remember the Hebrew children, remember Habak-
kuk, remember Job, remember anyone you know who has
shown a stubborn faith. In his little book, Religious Per-
plexities, Principal Jacks says : " It is not the function of
religion to answer all questions we raise in our perplexi-
ties. It is the function of religion to give a man courage
to go in the face of life's perplexities. 55 "Our God will
deliver us ; ... but if not, be it known unto thee, O king,
that we will not serve thy gods.* 5 But if not, we wK not.
Sometimes faith must be a stubborn faith !
[109]
vn
Remember Jesus Christ
FREDERICK WILLIAM NORWOOD
MINISTER, CITY TEMPLE, LONDON, ENGLAND
FBEDEBICK WILLIAM NORWOOD was
born in Australia. He was educated at Or-
mond College, Melbourne, from which institution
he graduated. Tire honorary degree of Doctor
of Divinity has been conferred upon him by
OberHn College and Ursinus College in the
United States.
He was ordained in the Congregational min-
istry. He has been the minister at Canterbury,
Victoria; Brunswick,, Victoria; North Adelaide,
South Australia. He has been at the City Tem-
ple, London, since 1919.
During the war he was Honorary Captain,
Australian Imperial Forces.
He was chairman of the Congregational Union
of England and Wales in 1930-31.
He is a frequent visitor to the United States
and Canada. He is a most pleasing and in-
structive preacher. When you hear him, you
always carry away strength for your yearning
soul.
He is the author of The Cross and the Gar-
den, Sunshine and Wattlegold, Moods of the
Soul, The Gospel of the Larger World, The
Gospel of Distrust* and Indiscretions of a
Preacher*
VII
REMEMBER JESUS CHRIST
F. W. NORWOOD
Remember Jesus Christ. . . .
2 TIMOTHY 2: 8.
PRAYER
O God, we thank Tliee for the historic tradition that
brings us anew within the sweep of this Lenten Season.
We immerse ourselves in the faith of the ages and return
once more to this period made sacred to us by the Pas-
sion of our Lord. We pray Thee to give us grace to
enter into it, drawn not only hy the historic Impulse,
but hy Thine own Spirit for our enlightening- and for the
enrichment of our souls. Help us to understand anew
how everlasting is the conflict between light and dark-
ness, between good and evil, between the things that
surged to their greatest height in opposition to Christ
and the things that were shown by Him in their greatest
glory. Help every one of us in the measure in which we
find ourselves involved in this conflict to put our trust
in the eternal righteousness as He did and not fear to
climb or even to go down into the dark. Teach us also
in the measure in which we are involved in the conflict
that we may find our way upward and onward toward
the holy will of God, as He did_, and may the same great
Eternal Spirit that was His strength, and was shadowed
forth by Him, be ours also in the measure in which we
can receive it. When we look out upon the great world
in all the troubles and perplexities of these tempestuous
days, then help us also to hold fast by the eternal
righteousness and to trust in Thy hidden purposes. As
[113]
EEMEMBEB JESUS CHSIST
intimate tilings require the secrecy of the womb so that
the burden of fruitfulness may be shielded until the hour
dawns, help us to believe that Thou hast great and won-
derful purposes for the children of men which are ripen-
ing toward the birth. Help us, we beseech Thee, at
this time that we may discover the grace of God anew.
Thou art forever taking us by surprise. Thou dost re-
veal Thy strength in our times of weakness and Thy
beauty in times of darkness. Help us to find, even within
ourselves, in the innermost sanctuary of that temple of
our bodies, where the grace of God abides, deep re-
sources, and to know that even there, by the grace of
God, is the answer to our need and the equipment for
our tasks. If we have been turning our eyes hither and
thither seeking for help in things external, then help us,
we beseech Thee, to find the help that we need within,
where by the touch of divine grace conscious weakness
is changed into joyous strength.
Grant, we beseech Thee, that some who have come to
this place in weakness may depart clothed with strength ;
that some who have come in sorrow may find their sorrow
made radiant by the eternal message of the Cross; that
some who have come with no sense of the presence and
the power of God may discover that in Him they have
all and abound.
So help us to worship Thee, that our human worship
may make contact with the divine grace and be overflowed
by it; that our frail prayers, limping uphill in their
weakness, may meet the winged hosts of heaven and
swell their anthem of praise.
Since we have come in the name of Christ into the
house of prayer, let the wondrous grace of God meet us
and enswathe us and put upon us the impress of its own
beauty. This we ask through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
[114]
FREDERICK WILLIAM NORWOOD
I HAD first thought of preaching only upon these three
words which seemed to be underlined and emphasized as
the passage that met the eye. But I never was able to
get away from the associations of the passage as a whole.
"Remember that Jesus Christ was raised from the dead."
There is an association between Memory and the Resur-
rection of the Dead. It is more than merely suggestive.
To remember is to experience a resurrection. Things
that seem to have died, that have ceased breathing, that
make no response to the present moment are suddenly
awakened by memory and made alive again. It is a kind
of resurrection.
A man's personality resembles a mausoleum. Behind
the placid front of his breast* beneath the calm acquies-
cence of his composed face, shut away from view, there
are buried all manner of things which once were active
and responsive to the movements of the hour; but they
seemed to have died, some not long since, some long, long
ago.
But one never knows when Remembrance wiH come like
an angel of the resurrection with a trumpet in. his hand,
a spiritual trumpet whose notes are like the notes that
travel through the waves of ether and are only heard in
rooms where listeners are gathered in silence within, and
at the sound of the trumpet the graves are opened and
the dead come forth. Remembrance is the Awakener, the
Lord of the resurrection.
F 1151
BEMEMBER JESUS CHEIST
II
We may still hold on to the figure of the resurrection,
for things remembered and brought to life again do not
die, but live on and go forward into the life of the future.
Nothing really lives but memories. Things that we
call new have no significance until they relate themselves
with things that we remember. Our racial memories are
much more eternal and definitive than the new things we
say are always breaking in upon us in this strange era in
which we live. However mankind may make progress into
an unknown future, passing from the material plane on-
ward into the spiritual realm, the infantry, so to speak,
of the great army will be composed of things remem-
bered. New experiences will be added like "arms" or
**wings/* as we say when we use our military metaphors,
to describe new adaptions to meet new conditions, but
the rank and file of all our operations will consist of
things we have experienced and forever remember.
We shall always be men, fashioned in the main long,
long ago. Even when we go forward into the spiritual
realm toward which we are journeying we shall be "human"
spirits. We shall take with us our memories of the earth
plane, and remembrance will lead us up and along as we
climb the spirals of the Life Beyond.
It is a mistake to think that the past is past. The past
that is remembered is alive and alive forever.
ni
We may still keep the imagery of the resurrection as
[116]
PBEDEEICE: WILLIAM NORWOOD
we reflect that remembrance is the symbol o judgment.
What a man remembers is the touchstone of his character.
Not what he hears ! We hear all sorts of things. Sensa-
tions break in upon us like the waves of the sea, but we
only retain those that belong to us ; the rest pass us by.
If one has a faculty for music, he remembers music. If
one has it not, he hears it, but it does not remain; it does
not belong to him. How an artist remembers pictures
how a financier remembers prices how a housewife remem-
bers details in house management. Things that belong to
you, things that you are, remain. Things that do not
belong to you do not stay ; they pass away.
When something has happened in our lives which has
had a tremendous effect upon our characters, how the
mind goes round and round, viewing it from every angle,
imprinting upon itself every detail until it lives and lives
forever. I suppose we never really forget things that
belong to us. We bury some of them, and have no time
to stay by the graves. Our graveyards are like some of
those you find in the heart of old London, whose high
buildings overshadow, and traffic roars and rushes by.
But one clear note on the trumpet of the angel of re-
membrance, and the ghosts walk through the city, while
flesh and blood become shadows.
What a man remembers easily, deeply, tenaciously, that
is what a man is, and every now and again remembrance
calls that man to judgment.
IV
We may still keep the figure of the resurrection as we
[117]
EEMEMBER JESUS CHRIST
reflect that both good and evil are in remembrance. They
come alike from out their graves.
There are memories that cramp; there are memories
that release.
We all know what it is to be cramped by memory. It
is no use telling us to forget; we cannot. I have no faith
in that kind of forgetfulness which consists in deter-
minedly driving away unwelcome memories. They are
like marauding things which come out of the woods which
you may drive back into the undergrowth, but you cannot
locate them, and you never know when they will come out
again.
Evil memories have to be transformed, and one essen-
tial condition for their transformation is that they should
be more definitely remembered, looked at in the face, stared
down, understood, conquered.
It is much easier to compose the conduct than it is to
erase memories. We all know what it is sometimes to
decide upon a correct kind of conduct toward, let us say,
a certain person, though our minds remain full of bitter
memories. How hollow that is ! We ourselves know that
it is camouflage, and it is almost certain that he does also.
We truly affect each other not so much by the touch of
our hand or the sound of our voice as by a subtle aura
that conies out invisibly from our personality of which
we and others are conscious.
Few things are more fantastically futile than the effort
to da the right thing while we are thinking the wrong
thing. There are memories that cling about us which,
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FKEDEEICK WILLIAM NOEWOOD
not being cleansed or conquered, we think to screen by
correctness of conduct, but they give a theatrical appear-
ance to our studied actions.
There is a hind of patience that never complains, but
would probably be better if the complaints passed over the
lips and oxygenated themselves in harmless "grousing,"
but they are allowed to bite in like acid into the fabric of
the soul.
There is a secret kind of sin. which paints pictures in
the gallery of memory more compelling and more defini-
tive in many cases than if that sin were done quite openly
and blown away upon the cleansing winds of heaven.
There are evil memories that cannot be shouted down to
death and cannot be driven into the dark. They can only
be recognized and wrestled with and conquered and, most
gloriously of all, transformed by the grace of God until
the bitterness is taken out of them.
Let us now come out of these dark woodland paths,
fascinating as they are, out into the sunlight, and re-
member that there are memories which release. And now
you see I have come to my text. I have been approaching
it all the time, step by step, as we wandered along the
winding paths in the wood; but there it is, out in the open
air, sun-kissed, blown upon by the free winds of heaven.
"Remember Jesus Christ."
Everybody knows, if he thinks about it at all, that a
follower of Jesus is one who often remembers him. There
is a kind of spiritual or psychological resurrection that
EEMEMBEE JESUS CHEIST
may happen again and again in our hearts. There is not
only the one great historic resurrection of the Easter
time so long ago, but it is remembrance that brings Jesus
out of the shadows of the past into the sunlight of the
present. Jesus, for us, is dead when we never think of
him; he is alive when we remember him. It is remem-
brance that distinguishes a disciple. A disciple who never
remembers Jesus well, he cannot be a disciple. The
essence of discipleship is to remember often Him whose
disciple you are.
How wonderful, how glorious, that there should be a
point in all the ages and in the midst of experience to
which remembrance may come with gladness and find re-
lease. "Remember Jesus Christ."
That is a kind of talisman that a man could carry
through life with inestimable advantage. "Remember
Jesus Christ."
Most of the great things in this world are so simple
that we stumble over them. We spend hours and hours,
we preachers especially, big sinners as the rest, hundreds
and thousands of times we discuss problems of human
conduct and try to give advice to men and women in all
the phases of their experience ; and yet, if one would only
see it and accept it, here is a phrase so simple and so short
that anyone might despise it, and yet merely to take it to
heart and live with it would change men's lives out of all
recognition. "Remember Jesus Christ. 59
When I say a thing like that I feel as if I am playing
on some mysterious instrument with spiritual keys that
strike responses in hearts that are unknown to me. It is
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FBEDEBICK WILLIAM NOEWOOD
like an seolian harp through which the winds blow, playing
all manner of music, sometimes sinMng down into a dirge,
sometimes rolling on like a mighty anthem. It Is like that
sometimes when you say a simple true thing that is, if the
power of God happens to be with you when you are saying
it. I ask that it may be. "Remember Jesus Christ."
When life is just about as dark as it can. be, when you
are fighting desperately to keep your feet, tempted to
despise yourself because of your own frailty, feeling your
need of courage, patience, strength, and, above all, pu-
rity "Remember Jesus Christ."
When you are tempted to think ill of your neighbor,
cannot get into right relations with him or her, finding a
little spurious mental superiority perhaps because he does
not see the truth as clearly or as you do, has lower stand-
ards of conduct than you have, or will not even be saved
in the way in which it seems right to you, "Remember
Jesus Christ."
When you feel as though you had lost God, and all is
dark without and within, then think that even he went
through an experience in which he said, "My God, my
God, why hast thou forsaken me?" "Remember Jesus
Christ."
When the unknown comes sweeping around you like a
dark sea, the unknown that blots out all the future, that
hovers round the gate of death, that clouds the far dis-
tances, whether in the future of the human race on this
terrestrial plane or in the far beyond, in the realm of the
spirit, "Remember Jesus Christ,"
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EEMEMBEE JESUS CHBIST
When you are inclined to think that everything, both
personal and social, is drifting into disaster, when the
world seems all out of joint and the Church seems defunct
and nothing could save either but a resurrection, then
Remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead.
And not only in your dark hours but in the brightest
hours of all for there are such hours ; if there were not,
we could not live, hours when the whole universe seems
wonderful and beautiful, as indeed it truly is when you
seem to see humanity on its long weary march toward the
city of God, and the sunlight shines on its distant towers,
when you feel yourself matched with the hour and are
longing for the fray there are such hours they come to
us like the swallows come, they do not always come because
of the labor of our intellect, they come like spring comes,
they come like the sea breezes come, they come like the
sunlight comes, suddenly dissipating the clouds. Let
them come, they are prophetic authentications of the reve-
lations not yet made fully clear; but let them come, rise
up to meet them, and as you rise to meet them with your
head uplifted and your very soul aflame, then, supremely
then, "Remember Jesus Christ. 55
[122]
VIII
The Heavenly Vision
RUSSELL HENRY STAFFORD
MESISTEB,, OLD SOUTH CHURCH
BOSTON, MASS.
RUSSELL HENRY STAFFORD was born
in 1890 at Wauwatosa, Wis. He graduated
from the University of Minnesota with the B.A.
degree. He received the M.A. degree from
New York University and the B.D. degree from
Drew Theological Seminary. The honorary de-
gree of Doctor of Divinity was conferred upon
him hy Chicago Theological Seminary and Doc-
tor of Laws by Oglethorpe University.
He was ordained in the Congregational min-
istry, and was pastor of the Open Door Con-
gregational Church, in Minneapolis, the First
Church, Minneapolis, Pilgrim Congregational
Church, St. Louis, and is now pastor of Old
South Church, Boston.
He is a trustee of Drury College, Piedmont
College, and Emerson College of Oratory.
He is one of the leading ministers of Amer-
ica, and his sermons always have a very wide
appeal.
He is the author of Finding God and Chris-
tian Humanism,
VIII
THE HEAVENLY VISION
KUSSELL HENUY STAFFORD
Wherefore^ O King Agrippa, I was not dis-
obedient unto the heavenly vision.
ACTS 26: 19.
THE conversion of Paul is the most important event in
Christian history after the resurrection of Jesus, not even
excepting Pentecost. To all generations of Churchmen,
the vision on the Damascus road must be of perpetual
interest. For the Christian Church as a world movement
owes its origin to that experience which transformed an
enemy of the Cross into its first foreign missionary, the
first competent organizer and executive of Christian af-
fairs, and the first systematic theologian of the gospel.
There are three accounts of this conversion in the book
of Acts, two of them from Paul's own lips. The most
dramatic of the three is found in the Apostle's speech at
Csesarea before the Roman Governor, Festus, and his
guests, Herod Agrippa II, King of Chalcis, and Agrippa's
sister, his aunt by marriage, the widow of his predecessor
on the throne, Queen Bernice.
The dramatic quality of this narrative derives from the
position of Paul himself at the time, and its contrast with
the brilliancy of the setting. Twenty-four years had
passed since Paul was converted, and he was now an old
[125]
THE HEAVENLY VISION"
man, every inch, a good soldier of Christ Jesus, hardened
by many well-fought campaigns, yet with, some of the
most signal achievements of his career still waiting him in
the few remaining years of his life. He had been two
years in prison. But, though it had perhaps weakened
Ms body, prison had not broken his spirit nor confined
Ms mind. Invoking his prerogative as a Roman citizen,
he had but lately taken his appeal to Cassar that is, to
the Supreme Court of the Empire and was awaiting
transfer to Rome for trial before that august tribunal.
Festus was a newcomer in these parts, a Mgh imperial
official Agrippa and Bernice were princelings of the
mongrel stock of Herod, Jewish enough to be in a sort of
family touch with Hebrew life and thought, Greek enough
to be vain of their not very important titles, Roman
enough to move in the world's best society and to hold a
place near the top. The three of them swept into the
audience chamber, with a glittering train of lords and
ladies in attendance, moved by a not ill-natured curiosity
as to what tMs little old Jew heretic, Rome's prisoner
rather against Rome's will, might have to say for Mm-
self. They expected no more of the hearing than that it
would afford them an hour's added diversion in a day
already crowded with lustrous social engagements.
Perhaps* after all, that is all they got out of it. Never-
theless, they fell manifestly under the spell of the man
whom they had summoned to give an account of himself.
From the first word he uttered, Paul was master of tbe
situation, because what he had to say was interesting, and
was said with courtliness and with no little elegance. I
[126]
BUSSELlr ECEISTBY STAFFORD
should suppose that this brief speech deserves to rank
among the major orations on record.
One is struck first by the courtesy of Paul's approach
to his subject. He realized that these potentates were
not his enemies, and he availed himself to the full of the
opportunity to conciliate their favor still further by legiti-
mate compliments. He might well have been sullen, after
his years in prison, at having to tell his story over again,
without any possible immediate effect on the outcome of
his case, simply to make a Roman holiday. But by bear-
ing himself as a gentleman should under such circum-
stances he both preserved his own dignity and succeeded
in making a real impression, though doubtless it was a
fleeting one, in behalf of the religious truth to which he
had dedicated his life.
Again, one cannot but note the Apostle's modesty on
this occasion. Modesty is not a trait which we ordinarily
associate with Paul. In his letters to Christian Churches
he had so often to assert his rights and rehearse his claims
to consideration, in order to curb personal detractors who
were also dangerous enemies to the cause, that we are
sometimes tempted to think that he was given to bombast.
But in Festus* audience chamber there was no need for
him to be on the defensive in this way. So he carefully
understates his case. "I was not disobedient," says he.
What a toning down there is, in that negative expression,
of the colossal fact of his creative obedience through the
quarter-century in which he had made his three great
missionary journeys, written his most adroit and master-
ful epistles, and already changed the way of the Nazarene
[127]
THE HEATENXY YISICKN"
over from a Jewish sect into a world religion! This is
the language of a man who knows how to forget himself
in his work, and wants no personal credit save such as
may be of use for the work's own sake.
"Almost thou persuadest me to be a Christian," said
Agrippa, when he had done. And I judge that at the
moment Agrippa almost meant it, Festus* exclamation
tells us even more about the impression Paul had made:
"Thy much learning is turning thee mad!" The Gov-
ernor was constrained to admire in his prisoner a man with
clear and powerful intellect, well trained. But there was
no course open to him, short of actual acceptance of the
gospel, save to call this story a sign of madness this
story of a dead man who was alive again, and of a heavenly
vision certifying that he was the Son of God Most High.
I sometimes wish that we might have heard this story for
the first time after we had reached maturity, so that we
might appreciate how mad it sounds to the hard, worldly
mind. For its very extravagance might stimulate our
imaginations and grip our souls. Yet probably it is as
well that we did not, for by hearing it in childhood we
were perhaps kept from becoming as hard and worldly
as we might otherwise have been. Obviously it must be
either, as Festus supposed, a preposterous invention of a
disordered mind, or the supreme and central episode in
God's relations with mankind. If this be madness, how-
ever, it is a divine madness ; for from it have come through
the centuries the greatest benefits ever wrought for hu-
manity's relief and upbuilding.
Now we come to consider the story itself of this mar-
[128]
EUSSELL HEISTRY STAITOBD
velous conversion. We hear it rehearsed in polished
periods by Paul before Ms royal auditors. We believe,
or at least we say that we believe, in the gospel to which
his vision won him over. Most of us, if we are quite
honest, feel at least a little skeptical as to the genuineness
of our belief. We wish it went deeper with us. We envy
Paul because he had so firm a foundation for his faith.
We say to ourselves that he was a great Christian, and
stands in the forefront of the ages among constructive
world-citizens, because he had this great experience.
Nothing of the sort has ever come to us. If it had, we
might be great Christians too.
The wistful tinge in our thought about Paul's story of
what befell him on the road to Damascus is due, I am sure,
to our conviction that, if the gospel were not true, it
ought to be; that there is no other influence among men
so potent for all things good and fair as this gospel in
which Paul believed so tremendously; that, if ever our
race is to be rescued from the forces within it which make
for its dissolution, it can only be when Christians in
general believe in the gospel as tremendously as Paul did.
In other words, what the world needs is Christians who
are Christians all the way through, so that they act upon
their faith as the platform of their whole life, not only in
personal rectitude, but in unresting sacrificial service to a
better order that must be brought to pass in human af-
fairs. The only inspiration for labor to that end which
has ever been effective, on any considerable scale or over
any protracted period, is the faith of which Paul stands
as the foremost exponent after Jesus. To be specific,
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THE HEAVENLY YISIOH
you and I would be better men and women, and the world
would profit far more from our sojourn here, if only we
could be great Christians. Not all great Christians are
great men ; but, if we were all great Christians, some great
man might arise among us, and the rest of us would be
glad to find our usefulness in helping him at his work.
So it may pay us to study Paul's conversion, to see
what there is in it which may be suggestive for us, and
whether it need be wholly without an analogue in our own
experience.
First, then, let me call your attention to one reassuring
point. Paul was not converted to a theology, but to a
person. After he had become a follower of that person,
he had to work out a new theology. That suits us very
well. We are suspicious of creeds which pretend to final-
ity. If to be a great Christian meant to swallow down
any formal statement of faith without criticism, none of
us could ever qualify. We belong to a critical era, and
in that degree in which our minds are alive we insist upon
the right and necessity of thinking things out for our-
selves. Well, that is exactly what Paul did, after his
conversion. What that conversion did was to win his
loyalty to a man, in whom at first he but sensed ob-
scurely the ultimate values of life and the final truth about
the Universe, instead of perceiving them clearly and con-
ceiving them logically. We may not take kindly to ready-
made creeds, but we do believe in high personal loyalties.
So we can follow Paul thus far with sympathy.
Now there comes a second reassuring point. We often
say that if only we could see Jesus, meeting him as a man
[ISO]
SUSSEIX HEXEY STAFFOEB
among men, we could not help wanting to be Hs friends,
and there might be some real hope of our becoming his
utterly devoted followers. But Paul did not see Jesus.
He saw a light, which blinded him for the time being.
That light meant to him Jesus' own presence; but he
never looked upon the lineaments of Mary's Son in the
flesh. Yet he became a more fruitful disciple than any
even of the eleven who had been closest to him while he
dwelt on earth. So we must dismiss this objection from
our minds, that it is a handicap not to have known Jesus
as a man in space-time.
But we have never seen a light, either, such as Paul
saw. On the other hand, however, we do see a light which
he never saw. There was no New Testament in his time.
He helped to write it. There were no Gospels, telling
simply about the way Jesus lived those four precious
books with a heavenly light shining through their pages.
If Paul had lived a hundred years later, he might indeed
have had a vision, but he would not have needed one; for
he would have had the books we have, bringing the Light
of the world into our homes. As it was, this vision was
indispensable. But I dare say that Paul himself would
rather have had a manual with which he could live day by
day than a light from heaven, above the brightness of the
sun, which shone round about him only one day of his
life.
The same holds true with regard to lie voice that Paul
heard. For, though he did not see Jesus, Jesus did speak
to him. There was no way at that time in which Jesus
could speak to him save by an audible voice. That is not
[131]
THE HEAYEHLY VISIOK
the case to-day. What Jesus said as well as how he lived
is set down for us in the Gospels. All the habitual accents
of his feeling and elements of his teaching await us there
whenever we turn back to the old pages, forever new, and,
instead of scanning them hurriedly, take time to think
these words over, and let them sink into our souls, and
accept them as guideposts on the road to right living.
Not only had Paul no advantage over us in seeing this
light and hearing this voice, since we have the Gospels,
but he did have a disadvantage which we have been spared.
For he had been Christ's enemy. He had done everything
in Ms power to withstand and offset and check the spread
of the movement which centered in the crucified Nazarene.
He had an enormous obstacle to overcome in his own
thinking before he could set out for himself on the way
which he had tried to bar for others. After all, though
the gospel might strike us more forcibly if it came to us
first after we were grown up, yet no doubt we ought to
be grateful for the privilege of having always been taught
to regard Jesus with reverence. For at least that has
saved us from having ever been his enemies. Instead of
being envious of Paul, it is proper for us to realize that
he had no advantages which we have not, and a serious
disadvantage which we do not share, in Ms approach to the
radiant and renewing adventure which turned him from a
narrow-minded, cruel-hearted, self-assertive legalist into
a broad-minded, kind-hearted, self-denying exemplar and
spokesman of the free grace of God to sinners.
Why, then, having been Christ's enemy, was he vouch-
safed so eminent a mercy as this heavenly vision? Why
[132]
RUSSELL HENRY STAFFORD
should it be given to him to know for certain that we can
go no further than to hope that we believe? We may be
sure that, despite his perverse opposition to new truth,
something in Paul prepared him to receive this revelation
of God's nature and will. God's gifts are never imparted
arbitrarily, without regard for the condition of their
recipients. And I suggest that the explanation lies in
the fact that, though he was in the wrong, yet Paul was,
and had long been, deeply in earnest about religion. It
was a lamentable thing, to be sure, to have been a per-
secutor of Christians; but, since Paul had been sincere
in his persecution by the brightest light he had received
until then, it was far less lamentable to act as he had done,
in zeal for religion, than to be a skeptical dilettante like
Agrippa, who could hear one of the most persuasive ser-
mons ever preached, and then go out to carry on with
the rest of the day's festive program, probably with
hardly a thought, after he left the audience chamber, of
the prisoner at whose hearing he had been present. If
we are looking for a reason why Christ does not seem as
real to us as he did to Paul, we shall probably find it in
the fact that in attitude toward sacred things we are
more like Agrippa on a pleasure tour than like Paul try-
ing with all his might, however mistakenly, to serve God.
We are not enough in earnest about eternal truth.
We do not have to remain thus indifferent, however,
unless we want to. If we will, we can be as serious in
pursuit of righteousness as ever Paul was. The drive of
his life was along religious lines, both before and after his
discovery of Christ. If the drive of our lives is also along
[133]
THE 3BDEATENLY VISION
religious lines , we too can discover Christ. Every man
needs to make that discovery for himself; for it is only
too possible to know a great deal about Christ without
knowing him at all. And when we come to know Jesus
at first hand, then we, like Paul, find that power in reli-
gion & power at work within us, and at work through
us upon the world, to set wrongs right and make life
nobler which we cannot but feel is the most urgent need
of the world in the chaos and among the gloomy omems of
our tense and difficult time.
Let me remind you again that we know, from PauPs
example, in what direction to look for this discovery. We
are not to start by looking in tomes of philosophy for a
rational explanation of all things. That comes after-
wards; and no theology we ever work out will be final,
for to comprehend being as a whole passes the capacity
of our little minds. Instead, we are to look directly to
Jesus, the Author and Finisher of our faith. Most of us
do not look at him often enough, or long enough, in the
Gospels. But we can hear the voice and see the light
there, just as clearly as Paul did on the Damascus road,
if we want to.
And when we do thus find the Master behind the mists
of conventional opinion and of our own habitual inatten-
tion to religious reality, he will take us by surprise as he
took Paul. For, though we have reverenced him always,
we are far from having understood him. We shall find
in him exactly the guidance we need. He will give us a
new starting point and new road directions for living.
[134]
EUSSELL HENEY STAFFORD
We shall gain from Mm a new hope, which lie guarantees,
of life's ultimate fulfillment. We shall learn from him, as
Paul did, how to transcend our moral limitations and grow
to heroic stature in the service of God's will that is, of
fair dealing and general amity and helpfulness, in our
homes, in our neighborhoods, and so on out through the
world.
Yes, what the world needs is men and women of vision
like Paul. And what happened to Paul, to make him a
man of vision, was not different in. kind, though it was
different in manner, from what happens to people nowa-
days, provided we are sufficiently in earnest about re-
ligion to be looking for the power in it that can make the
world over on a better plan, instead of treating it as a
mere adjunct to worldly living, a doctrinal scheme to be
held at the margin of our minds, a device for insuring us
at little cost the felicities of heaven after we have had
reluctantly to surrender the felicities of earth. When the
heavenly vision comes to a man, religion takes on a fresh
glory and grander dimensions. It expands until it fills the
whole life and becomes one with it. And its essence is
seen to be a simple and practical, yet splendid and im-
mortal, comradeship with Jesus* at daily tasks and in
humble places, until in due season our Friend shall lead
us on into the everlasting abode of the blessed.
[135]
IX
The Many-Sided Christ
CHARLES EDWARD JEFFERSON
PASTOE EMEEITTTS, BEOADWAY TABEENACLE
NEW YOEK CITY
CHARLES EDWARD JEFFERSON was
born in I860 at Cambridge, Ohio. He gradu-
ated from Ohio Wesleyan with the degrees of
B.S. and A.B. He received the degree of
S.T.B. from Boston University. The honorary
degrees of Doctor of Divinity and Doctor of
Laws have been conferred upon him.
He was ordained in the Congregational min-
istry and was pastor of Central Church, Chel-
sea> Mass., and of Broadway Tabernacle, New
York City. He was a fellow of the Yale Cor-
poration until 1924.
He has traveled extensively and has preached
and lectured in all parts of the country. He
has been in demand as a teacher and preacher
at theological seminaries.
He is the author of many books. Many of
these books are sermons that were delivered at
Broadway Tabernacle^ such as Doctrine and
Deed, The New Crusade, Things Fundamental.
He was the Beecher Lecturer on Preaching at
Yale, and The Building of the Church was pub-
lished. Some of his recent books are Five Pres-
ent-Day Controversies, Five World Problems,
Cardinal Ideas of Isaiah, Cardinal Ideas of
Jeremiah f International Peace.
IX
THE MANY-SIDED CHRIST
CHABLES E. JEEFEBSOX
On his head were many crowns.
REVELATION 19: 12.
N hundred years ago there lived on a rocky is-
land in the JEgean Sea an exile by the name of John. He
was an exile because he was a Christian. The island was
lonely, and the life of the exile was desolate. In his
loneliness he meditated often on Jesus Christ, his Master.
On one Sunday suddenly the whole spiritual universe
seemed to open out before him, and he saw Jesus more
vividly than he had ever seen Mm before. His face was
majestic, his eyes burned like fire, and on his head were
many crowns. That is the language of symbolism. That
is the symbolic way of saying that John perceived that
Jesus was supreme in all the fields of action. He was
sovereign in all the realms of power. He was ruler in all
the kingdoms of life. All sovereignties were gathered up
in him. He was the King of kings and the Lord of lords.
Every careful reader of the New Testament is deeply
impressed by the large number of names which are given to
Jesus. On close scrutiny it is seen that these names were
not given to him by others, but were chosen and applied
to himself by himself. He seemed to take delight in
choosing a variety of names in order to show forth the
range of his personality and the scope of his mission. His
[189]
THE MANY-SIDED CHRIST
favorite title was "Son of Man." That occurs many
times in the Gospels. When you turn the pages of the
Gospel according to Matthew you read, "The Son of man
had nowhere to lay his head," "The Son of man has
power on earth to forgive sins," "The Son of man is lord
of the sabbath," "The Son of man came eating and drink-
ing," "Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?"
The expression occurs twenty-five times in that one Gos-
pel. When he calls himself the Son of Man he is saying:
"I am the son of humanity. I am the child of mankind.
I am the real man, the ideal man, the kind of man that
God wants a man to be. I am the man."
But he was not content with this title alone. He was in
the habit of saying, "I am the light of the world." That
was even more pretentious than the other title. It is an
amazing claim for a man to make that he is the light of
the world, because we cannot live without light. We are
dependent on the light of the sun. We Americans are
very clever in manufacturing artificial light, but we can-
not live on it. If the light of the sun were removed, we
should all fade away. Jesus says, "I am the light of the
world," and by saying that he asserts that without him
humanity would droop and die.
On another occasion he said, "I am the bread of life.* 5
There are times when we want nothing so much as bread.
Occasionally we like cake, but there are times when bread
is far better than cake. We have all experienced moments
when the most delicious thing in the world was just plain
bread. Without bread we cannot Eve. Jesus says, "I am
the bread of life." He said it to a company of men who
[140]
CHAELES EDWAED JEEFEBSOISr
had recently experienced the pangs of hunger. They
knew what it was to be hungry, and they knew what it was
to be filled. It was to those men that he said, "I am the
bread of life. 55
On another occasion he said, "I am the water of life. 55
He said it to a woman of Samaria at Jacob's well. She
had nothing in her mind at that particular moment but
water. She wanted water more than anything else. Jesus
said, "If you knew who I am, you would ask of me, and I
would give you living water. 55
At another time he said, "I am the vine, ye are the
branches. 55 This was on the last night of his life. His
disciples were brooding over the thought of separation.
Death was coming and would cut the bonds by which
Jesus and his disciples were bound together. He says to
them: "I am the vine,, ye are the branches. Without me
ye can do nothing. 55 He expected these men to work after
he was gone; therefore it was incredible that death was
going to cut the bonds by which they were bound together.
Death cuts no bonds between Jesus and those who love
him. He is the vine. We are the branches.
On another occasion he said, "I am the door. 55 He said
it on the day on which a blind man whose eyes had been
opened had been cast out of the synagogue. The ec-
clesiastical leaders in Jerusalem were dogmatic and tyran-
nical men. They had no hesitation in excommunicating a
man if the man dared to displease them. This poor blind
beggar was ignominiously cast out, and this is what Jesus
said: "I am the door. By me a man can come in and go
out and find pasture. 55 That means that no man is de~
[141]
THE MANY-SIDED CHRIST
pendent for Ms salvation upon the decision of ecclesiastical
lords. The way is always open to God through him.
On that same day he called himself "the good shep-
herd." Palestine was a land of sheep and shepherds.
Every Jew knew the characteristics of a shepherd. The
flocks were always small and it was possible for a shep-
herd to know every sheep by name. Jesus said: "I am
the good shepherd. I know every sheep by its name, and
I am willing to lay down my life for the sheep."
In the upper room on the last night, when the disciples
were all confused and depressed, Jesus said, "I am the
way." A fog had blown in and obliterated all the familiar
landmarks. The disciples did not know which way to
turn or in what direction to start out. When one of them
said, "I do not know the way," Jesus replied, "I am the
way." He went on to add, "I am the truth." These men
were to go out and preach the truth, but they did not
know what the truth was. They shrank from the ordeal
of instructing the nations of the earth. Jesus said, "I
arn the truth." They felt that their very life was being
taken out of them by the departure of Jesus. They could
not conceive how they could live without him. Jesus said :
"I am the life. My life is going to pulsate in you."
Sometime before this Jesus had said to two women who
were weeping in the cemetery at Bethany, "I am the
resurrection." They were mourning over the death of
their brother. They believed in the resurrection ; but this
gave them no comfort, because the resurrection was so far
off. Jesus said, "I am the resurrection."
This same Jesus meets the exile on the Isle of Patmos 9
[142]
CHAELES EDWABD JEFFERSON"
and he says to him, 4C I am the Alpha and the Omega."
Those are the names, as you know, of the first and last
letters in the Greek alphabet. He goes on to explain:
"I am the first and the last. I am the beginning and the
ending." In other words, "All life begins and ends in
me." Later on Jesus says to the same exile, "I am the
bright and morning star." Darkness brooded over the
face of the earth. The whole universe was plunged in
gloom. There seemed to be no hope of deliverance any-
where. The brute forces were in the ascendancy. Spir-
itual forces were impotent and everywhere defeated. But
to this man, oppressed by the darkness, Jesus says: "I
am the bright and morning star. I am the star that points
to the dawn. I am the star that tells you of the coining
morning." Let us think, then, this morning, about the
many-sided Christ.
We need a many-sided Christ because we are many-
sided creatures. The psychologists tell us that we are
made up of intellect and emotion and will, and we believe
that this is so. We are all conscious of the fact that we
have thoughts and emotions and that we make decisions.
We need a Christ therefore who can appeal to our mind
and also one who can satisfy our heart and also one who
can brace our will. But we are more than intellect and
emotion and volition. We are a bundle of appetites and
passions, and every appetite craves a different sort of
gratification and every passion burns with a fire all its
own. We have aspirations and yearnings and longings,
and every aspiration climbs by a different stairway toward
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THE MANY-SIDED CHRIST
the stars. We need a Christ who can meet us on every
stair in our upward climbing.
We are always changing because we are creatures in a
process of development. Once we were a baby, and then
we became a child, and later on we became a youth, and
later on they called us an adult; but in our adult life we
have been changing all the time. We were one thing in
the twenties and another thing in the thirties and another
thing in the forties. If we are in the forties now, we are
certain to be different in the fifties, and still different in
the sixties, and something different still in the seventies
and eighties, and in the nineties, if God lets us live so
long. Our needs are always changing, and to meet these
needs we must have a many-sided Christ. We must have a
Christ who will meet us at every point along the difficult
and ascending way.
We are creatures of fluctuating moods. We are never
just the same on any two consecutive days. We are
thermometers and we go up and down. We are barom-
eters, and sometimes the index points to "fair" and some-
times it points to "storm. 5 * We need a Christ who can
meet us in all kinds of weather.
We can understand therefore why Christ chose so many
names by which to image forth his character and per-
sonality* There are times when we want nothing so much
as light. We say with Ajax in Homer's immortal poem,
"Give me to see, and Ajax asks no more.'* But there are
other times when we are not in conscious need of light.
We are hungry. We want bread. There is nothing in
the world that will satisfy us but bread. But again we
CHAELES EDWAED JEFEERSO2Q"
do not want bread. We want water. We would not ex-
change one tiny cup of water for all the bread in the
world, for we are thirsty, and water is the one thing that
we must have. There are other times, however, when we
want nothing so much as a shepherd's care. We have
lost our way and we are out in a storm, and only a
shepherd can save us. Again, we need nothing so much as
a star. We are discouraged. The sky is filled with mid-
night. Darkness broods over us. Hope has died. There
seems no hope that the world will ever grow better. We
need a star, a star that will speak to us of the dawn and
tell us of the morning.
Now, this myriad-sidedness of Jesus Christ is expressed
in the very structure of our New Testament. Did you
ever ask yourself the question, Why do we have four
Gospels? Why would not one have been enough? The
answer is that Christ is so many-sided he could not have
been completely presented to us by any one Evangelist.
The Gospels are all different from one another, and the
more you study them the greater these differences are.
To a person who reads only carelessly the four Gospels
are very much alike, and in some respects they are alike.
The similarities are very many and also very impressive.
For instance, in every Gospel Jesus holds the center of
the stage. In all of them we meet the twelve apostles. In
all of them we get acquainted with Martha and Mary, with
Herod and Pilate, and with several other leading char-
acters. We are face to face with a few cardinal events
in all the Gospels: the trial of Jesus, his crucifixion, his
resurrection. No wonder many people assume that the
[145]
THE MACTY-SIDED CBDRIST
four Gospels are quite alike, but no one assumes that who
is not ignorant. Ignorance is a kind of darkness which
blots out all distinctions. There are many persons to
whom all music is alike. They can tell the difference be-
tween Yankee Doodle and the Long Meter Doxology, but
they are not impressed by the difference between Mozart
and Beethoven, or between Wagner and Puccini. There
are some who pay no attention to the singing of the birds.
To them all bird notes are alike. They can tell the dif-
ference between a rooster and a robin, but not the dif-
ference between a catbird and a hermit thrush. There are
people who care very little for flowers. To them all flow-
ers are much alike. They are all pretty and most of them
have brilliant colors, but beyond this their knowledge does
not go. They can tell the difference between a sunflower
and a pansy, but they make no distinction between a
tulip and a lily, or between a peony and a dahlia. There
are many persons who are so ignorant of the New Testa-
ment that they cannot tell one Gospel from the other,
but persons who cannot distinguish the Gospels from one
another are missing more than, they know. It is in the
recognition of distinctions and in meditating upon the
differences that we get an enormous amount of knowledge
and not a little satisfaction. That is why I am always
urging you to live with the New Testament and to live in
it, to read it again and again and again, to keep reading
it always, for it is only by reading it constantly that one
comes at last to know what the New Testament really is.
Let us see how these Gospels differ from one another.
When you open the First Gospel and turn to the fifth
[146]
CHARLES EDWABD JEITEESOK"
chapter, you find this statement concerning Jesns: "He
opened his mouth and taught them." That is, Jesus is
presented to you at once as a teacher, and all through this
First Gospel he is opening his mouth to teach. It is in
this First Gospel alone that you have the Sermon on the
Mount complete. It is in this Gospel that you have fifteen
parables, and a series of wonderful chapters of instruction
beginning with the twentieth chapter. When you turn to
the very last page of the Gospel, you find Jesus saying,
before a cloud received him from men's sight: "Go, dis-
ciple the nations. Baptize them in the name of the Father
and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them."
This means that the disciples of Jesus are to be teachers.
They are to unfold and apply the principles of the Su-
preme Teacher.
But there are many persons who are not interested in
ideas. They do not want to be taught. All teachers are
to them a good deal of a bore. It is surprising how many
people do not care to think. They have no use for think-
ers. Thinkers make them weary. But these people have
great admiration for workers. They love a man who does
things. There are persons who are thrilled by an idea.
A new or a beautiful idea can thrill them down to their
toes. There are other people who are never thrilled by
any idea. They are thrilled by a noble deed. They have
no admiration for thinkers, but tremendous admiration
for doers. This type of person needs a particular Gospel 3
and they have it in the Gospel according to Mark. In
Mark, Jesus as teacher does not stand at the front. Mark
paints us the portrait of a hero, a hero who performs
[147]
THE MANY-SIDED CHRIST
mighty deeds. It would be interesting sometime for you
to study the first chapter of Mark intensely and see how
different it is from anything you find in Matthew. There
is one word in that chapter which occurs eleven times, the
word "straightway." In the King James Version the word
occurred only four times, but it occurs eleven times in the
Revised Version. This is because the Revised Version
translates the Greek word always in the same way. The
King James Version tried to break the monotony, and so
sometimes it translated the Greek word "immediately"
and sometimes "forthwith" and sometimes "straightway."
But in the Revised Version "forthwith" and "immediate-
ly" are dropped, and we always have the word "straight-
way." Mark says that straightway Jesus did this and
straightway he did that and straightway he did something
else. He does not say straightway he said this or straight-
way he said that. Mark throws all the emphasis on Jesus'
deeds. He tells us he went into the synagogue, but Be
does not tell us what he said there. He tells us he went
into Simon Peter's home, but does not tell us what he
said there. He tells us that Jesus made a circuit of the
Galilean cities, but he does not tell us what he preached
on that journey. * Mark is not interested in teaching. He
does not seem to care much for ideas. He is very en-
thusiastic over what Jesus did. He tells us that in the
synagogue he healed a man who had an unclean spirit, and
he tells us that in the home of Simon Peter he healed a
woman who had a fever, and he tells us that in his circuit
of Galilean cities he healed a man who was a leper. Jesus
speaks only five times in this chapter, and in none of the
[148]
CHABLES EDWAED
five sentences is there a word of teaching. He says to
two men, "Come after me, and I will make you fishers of
men." He says to the Twelve, "Let us go to the next
towns, for I want to preach there. 95 He says to the un-
clean spirit, "Come out of him. 5 ' And he says to the leper,
"Be ye clean, but do not say anything about what I have
done. 55 Mark is not interested primarily in the ideas of
Jesus, and therefore in his Gospel you have only four
parables two of them little bits of things, one consist-
ing of three verses and one of four. There is no Sermon
on the Mount in Mark. From first to last it is a Gospel
which holds up Jesus as a doer of heroic deeds.
But there are times when we are not interested in heroes
any more than we are interested in ideas. Teachers and
heroes make us weary. We can stand them for a while,
but we do not want them always. There are times when we
need something quite different from ideas or from a shining
example. We want kindness and sympathy and affection.
We want to be loved. We want the tender touch of a
physician, for we are sick. We are bruised. We are
wounded and bleeding. We need the skill of a physician.
In the Third Gospel we have Jesus as a great physician.
The Gospel was written by a physician, and it was natural
that he should respond to the physician's side of Jesus'
personality. The Third Gospel is the most tender of all
the Gospels. Nowhere else is Jesus so sympathetic and
so affectionate. In this Gospel he is especially kind to
the poor, for the poor were so generally neglected. In
this Gospel Jesus is kind to women, because women in
Palestine were looked down on. In this Gospel Jesus was
[149]
THE MA3STY-SIDED CBGRIST
kind to publicans. Luke tells os with great delight of
little Zacehseus in the sycamore tree. La this Gospel
Jesus is kind to the Samaritans. Luke is the only Gospel
that tells us the parable of the Good Samaritan. In this
Gospel Jesus is kind to foreigners. Luke takes delight
in telling us about the first sermon in Nazareth in which
Jesus reminded his hearers that Elijah was kind to a
woman in Sidon and that Elisha was kind to a King of
Syria. It was the kindness of Jesus to classes which
were ostracized and hated that the Gentile physician took
a special delight in portraying.
But there come times in every life when we do not want
a teacher and we do not care for a hero and we do not
long for a physician. What we want is a savior. We
want somebody to deliver us from our sins. We are con-
scious of our weakness. We cannot break bad habits.
We cannot get rid of ugly dispositions. We cannot escape
the gnawing of remorse. We want a savior. And in the
Fourth Gospel we have the Saviour revealed. At the
very beginning of the Gospel we hear a strong voice say-
ing, "Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the
sin of the world." You turn a few pages and you read,
"And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness,
even so must the Son of man be lifted up : that whosoever
believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life."
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only be-
gotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not
perish, but have everlasting He. 55 You meet the Saviour
all the way through the Fourth Gospel, and almost at the
very end of the book it is stated, "These things are writ-
[150]
CHAItLES EDWABD JEFFEESO^T
ten, that ye may believe that Jesus Is the Christ, the Son
of God ; and that believing ye may have life in his name."
It is because Jesus Christ meets us in all our needs and
in all our moods that he becomes the Saviour of the whole
world. In every one of the Gospels he is the great teacher,
and in every one he is the supreme hero, the man who
goes about doing good. In every one he Is the great
physician, gathering about him the sick and the for-
lorn. In every one he is the Saviour, forgiving men
their transgressions and endowing them with a new
life. But the emphasis of each of the Gospels Is different
from the emphasis of the other three. In the First Gospel
the teacher Is first, In the Second the hero Is first, In the
Third the physician is first, in the Fourth the Saviour is
first. We need all the four Gospels to satisfy our needs.
"Thou, O Christ, art all I want;
More than all In thee I find;
Raise the fallen, cheer the faint,
Heal the sick, and lead the blind."
[151]
X
The Benefits of Worship
SAMUEL PARKES CABMAN
MINISTER, CENTRAL CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
BROOKLYN, N* T,
SAMUEL PARKES CABMAN was born in
1864 at Wellington, Salop, England. He was
educated at the Wesieyan College at Richmond.
The honorary degrees, D.D., S.TJX, L.HJX,
LittD., LL.D., Ph.D.j have been conferred
upon him by various colleges and universities.
He was a Methodist minister. He was pastor
of the Metropolitan Temple, New York City,
and for the past three decades has been pastor
of the Central Congregational Church, Brook-
lyn.
He was president of the Federal Council of
the Churches of Christ in America. He is vital-
ly connected with World Conferences on Faith
and Order. He is a popular speaker at Theo-
logical Seminaries and Universities.
He is the author of many books, some of the
most wen-known being Charles Darwin and
Other English Thinkers, Ambassadors of God,
Imagination and Religion, Everyday Questions
and Answers.
He is the speaker in the National Sunday
Forum over the radio every Sunday afternoon.
It can truly be said that he is one of the most
colorful ministers in Protestantism to-day.
X
THE BENEFITS OF WORSHIP
S. PAEKES CABMAN"
ONE of to-day's favorite distinctions is between spiritual
and institutional religion. The first, we are assured, is
inward, real, and vital ; the second, outward, formal, and
conventional. Spiritual religion, it is said, consists of the
soul's response to life's major verities, while institutional
religion is merely our compliance with certain appointed
ordinances. The former at its worst is declared better
than the latter at its best; since institutional religion is
nothing more than a superficial addition which is always
exposed to the perils of professionalism.
I am convinced that this distinction is false in theory
and detrimental in practice. We can agree that a living,
active faith ushers its possessor into the felt presence of
his Creator, admits him to fellowship with eternal values,
and sets his affections on things above rather than on those
of the earth.
But since we are what we are and where we are, ex-
perience demonstrates that one might as well attempt to
separate the body from the soul as separate the outward
expression of what we believe from its inward hold on us.
When men and women are profoundly convinced of spir-
itual realities and submit to their control in daily living,
they become witnesses to these realities.
For these reasons, the New Testament extorts us not
[155]
THE BEItfEFITS OF WOESHIP
to "forsake the assembling of ourselves together. 5 ' The
heart which has been transformed in secret must openly
reveal its adoration because it has an instinctive desire to
convey its experience to others. Not only Judaism and
Christianity, hut every effective religion, has its temples
and sanctuaries, rites and ceremonies, rules and ordi-
nances. These protect character, stimulate its growth,
and enlist the soul's energies in its highest aspiration.
They enable the worshiper to confirm his brethren in
their faith, They prepare him for life's inescapable re-
sponsibilities. The most serviceable believers communicate
between the mount of vision and the plain of daily duty.
They use the grace inspired by the closet of prayer and
the sanctuary of praise to consecrate afresh the home, the
factory, the store, and the office.
INDIFFEBEHCE HAS FAILED
Prejudiced efforts to obscure these manifest gains are
bound to fail. Indeed, the widespread indifference to
church and synagogue has already failed. It has vul-
garized the nation, coarsened its fiber, lowered its aims,
deadened its conscience, and degraded its pursuits and
pleasures. Clearly enough, faithful attendants on reli-
gious worship are far more essential to public sanity and
welfare than are the multitudes who habitually neglect
that worship.
The frequent plea that such devotion is a matter for
one's personal choice has been largely overworked. Sure-
ly it is plain that the divine revelation on which all true
religion is based cannot be at men's complete disposal.
SAMUEL PAREES
We are what we are by God's will, and If we would realize
what we ought to be, we are bound to obey that will.
Strange conceits were bred by our spasmodic temporal
affluence. People began to arrogate to themselves an
imaginary independence which worked havoc with indi-
vidual character and national well-being.
Life's testings show that human freedom has no such
scope and function as many attribute to it. Quite other-
wise, it is strictly regulated by an authority beyond our
control. That freedom cannot change the fixed elements
of our existence, nor can it substitute human moods and
fancies for God's decreed essential without incurring loss
and danger.
When He vouchsafes us intervals of spiritual recrea-
tion, these are not solely for private uses. We have to re-
invest them in fine social contacts and imperative social
obligations. They are intended for our manifestation in
profitable word and deed.
N MUST BE EVIDENT
You will say that a man's religion is what he is when he
is alone. I reply that a man's religion is sadly deficient
until his fellows are aware of what lie is. So the visible
organization of religion exists for the specific and that
other men may see our good works and glorify the Father
who is in heaven.
The Christian Church provides ample means for the
privilege. Her cathedrals, sanctuaries, sacraments; her
stated services, places for prayer, thanksgiving, and medi-
tation, and her philanthropic and evangelizing agencies
[157]
THE BENEFITS OF TTOESHIP
are precious fruits of the ages of faith. All are to be
cherished and observed with fidelity in order that we may
know the love of Him who has created and redeemed us,
and crowned our lives with his loving-kindness.
Out of these governing motives came the Jewish Sab-
bath, the Lord's Day, the Holy Supper, baptism, the
matchless literature of the Bible and its kindred books,
the molding of successive civilizations, the making of pow-
erful States. Science, art, and architecture are the un-
discharged debtors of ancestors who believed that religion
was the prime business of home and nation, and who for-
sook not "the assembling of 'themselves' together.' 5
Of course we can do otherwise. We can refuse to
sustain the Church, which is Christianity's most char-
acteristic product. We can ignore the lofty claims of the
one institution which offers our newborn life to God in
baptism, hallows the family in marriage, stresses the
weekly day of rest and gladness, enlists our noblest facul-
ties, engages our best emotions, and preserves our indi-
viduality in a mechanistic age.
But such an attitude will rob us of the strength and
resolution needed for a very critical era, and a churchless
generation will presently recoil upon itself in conspicuous
weakness and disappointment.
INTEGRAL PAET OF THE GOSPEL
For institutional Christianity is not an artificial adorn-
ment. It is an integral part of the inwardness of the
gospel we are commanded to proclaim to the world. With-
out its visible witness for God, the spiritualities of society
[158]
SAMUEL PAEKES CABMAN
decay, personal conduct becomes lamentable, political
ethics decline, and the national morale proves unequal to
the national requirements.
Sooner or later the people who treat the adoration of
their Maker with indifference fall short in conscience and
duty. It is irrelevant to urge that some notable bene-
factors have no use for religious observances. In nearly
every instance these honorable citizens inherited their sub-
stantial qualities from parents who forsook not the as-
sembling of themselves together. Their benevolence was
nurtured in the Lord's house.
But what of oncoming generations which are deprived
of that splendid heritage of faith? What of your sons
and daughters who will be thrust in life's battle against
secularism, selfishness, lust, and pride unfortified by spir-
itual training and discipline? If millions around us are
existing on inherited merits, should not the millions who
follow us here have a chance to prove our sources of their
souls 5 renewal in divine realities?
I do not plead for an inflexible Sabbatarianism. "The
old-fashioned Sunday" had its generous recompenses
for those who kept it holy. It sanitated men and nations.
It furnished Church and State with devout, earnest, and
godly servants of the Lord. It lit the lamps of sacrifice
and adoration in the homes of the plain folk. It dis-
patched the ambassadors of Christ's gospel to distant
lands buried in darkness and fatalism.
Away with the notion that Kbertines, self-lovers^ and the
greedy of gain who would commercialize the Lord's Bay
can dictate its epitaph ! So long as right-minded men and
THE BENEFITS OF WOESHIP
women crave wisdom and virtue and loathe the seductions
of folly and vice, they will repair to God's sanctuary to
give thanks for the countless benefits received at his hands
and to ask for "those benefits which are requisite and
necessary as well for the body and soul."
[160]
XI
The Great Expectation
JOSEPH FORT NEWTON
HDHSTEE OF PBEACEING, ST. JAMES EPISCOPAL CHUECH
PHILADELPHIA, PA.
JOSEPH FOET NEWTON was born in
1878 at Decatur, Tex. He was educated at
Hardy Institute and the Southern Baptist
Theological Seminary. Tne honorary degrees
of Doctor of Literature, Doctor of Divinity,
and Doctor of Laws have been conferred upon
him.
He was pastor of the First Baptist Church,
Paris, Tex.; a non-sectarian Church in Saint
Louis; the Liberal Church, Cedar Rapids,
Iowa; the City Temple, London, England; the
Church of Divine Paternity, New York City;
minister of St. Paul's Church, Overbrook,
Pa, He is now the minister of preaching at
St. James Episcopal Church, Philadelphia.
He is well known in America and in Eng-
gland. He writes for the press and publishes
many books.
Some of his best-known books are: The Eter-
nal Christ, The Builders, The Ambassador,
Same Living Masters of the Pulpit, Preaching
in London* Preaching in New York, and The
New Preaching.
XI
THE GREAT EXPECTATION
JOSEPH FORT ^TEWTOK
The Lord* whom ye seek, shall suddenly
come to his temple, even the 'messenger of the
covenant, ' MALACHI 3: 1.
Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in
peace; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.
LUKE 2 : 29, 30.
THESE two texts join the last book of the Old Testament
with the first scenes of the New ; and though far apart in
time, they are united by one Great Expectation. Be-
tween them flowed four hundred years of tragic vicissi-
tude, but that mighty hope, though often defeated and
long delayed, still reigned. Like an arch of promise, it
not only spanned that long period, but it became more
spiritual, more luminous. Nothing in our human annals is
more thrilling than the history of the Messianic hope in
the Hebrew heart, forefelt in the Old Bible and fulfilled in
the new ; the insight of faith which saw the day-star in the
bosom of midnight and followed it through the ages.
TTS the Boston library, Sargent has painted the his-
tory of the origin of religion, its dim beginnings in beast
worship, and the tangled maze of hopes and fears out of
which dawned, slowly, the aH-transfiguring vision of the
one true God. How appealing the figure of the Hebrew
slave at prayer, and how vivid the answer to Ms prayer
[168]
THE GBEAT EXPECTATION
when the hand of God is put forth from the unseen to
stay the arm of the despot a hand expressive of vast and
tender power I Below are the prophets, with Moses in the
center, ranging from the earliest seers who saw hut dimly,
to the latest singers who stand with shining faces and
uplifted hand, expecting the coming of Christ. My favor-
ite is the figure of Hosea the Whittier of the Bible
whose face, drawn from the face of Coventry Patmore, the
poet and mystic, is that of a youth, beautiful with benign
and tender light. The vision of these servants of the ideal
exalts us with a sense of the spiritual struggle of the race,
and the high mission of the prophetic genius.
Above the confusions and terrors of their times the
prophets held one tremulous, yet triumphant, hope which
their tortured hearts refused to surrender the hope that
God had not broken his covenant with the race. The
high intention at the beginning stood firm, "Let us make
man in our image, after our likeness," and that note never
ceased to sound in the silence of their spiritually sensitive
souls. Always it is faith in God that kindles faith in
human possibility. In all ages those souls truest to them-
selves have found in the high purpose of God for humanity
the clue to the mingled tragedy and splendor of history,
and that faith has filled the night-sky with stars. In the
souls of the prophets it was faith in the veracity of God
that defeated discouragement and despair the trust that
held when they lost all other trusts. They could not
think, even in their darkest hours, that God would allow
the human soul to be betrayed and mocked by its own
purest and holiest insights. When they foresaw the com-
[164]
JOSEPH FOET NEWTON
ing of the Soul of Man the coming, that is, of a higher
type of humanity they went beyond the cynical facts,
by faith interpreting the Mind of God.
THE PBOPHETS* MIGHTY FAITH
All through the music of the prophets one hears a note
of expectation, a grand and solemn optimism. However
threatening the scene of national life, however terrible
their denunciations of evil, those heroic souls kept their
speech free'from the poison of pessimism. Underneath all
their eloquence lay the framework of a mighty faith : first,
that which is not based upon justice must perish ; second,
God has revealed justice to his people; third, humanity
exists to realize justice; and, finally, justice will be real-
ized at last. The four principles of faith, the four in-
vincible certitudes of prophecy, constituted its power, its
passion, and its consolation. And the last of the four, it
has been truly said, in equipping it with hope for all eter-
nity, preserved it from the crushing influence of time,
with its deadening inertia and its depressing apostasies.
These sons of the twilight lived with the future in their
souls, eager and forward-looking, their attitude a gesture
of expectation and appeal.
So far Malachi. When we close the Scroll of Prophecy
and open the Book of Fulfillment, how familiar is the
scene before us familiar as the home of our childhood
and interwoven with its memories. A peasant mother
with her husband and child are climbing the steps of the
temple, bringing two turtledoves as an offering of purifi-
cation as she presents her babe before the Lord, according
[165]
THE GEJEAT EXPECTATION"
to the law and custom of her religion. It was a simple
scene, such as one might have witnessed any day in the
temple. As Father Stanton used to say, it is the last
glance over the shoulder at Christmas before the shadow
of the passion falls. Even in that scene, so simple and
lovely, with its union of infancy and old age in the feEow-
ship of hope, there was a prophecy of the sword that
should pierce the heart of the mother for the healing of
many woes: "That the thoughts of many hearts may be
revealed."
Learned scribes and haughty rulers knew not the mean-
ing of that little group; they never do such things are
revealed only to babes 5 and to such as keep a heart of
childlike faith. But in every age, in e^very land, there are
elect souls who watch for the divine advent as Emerson
went about peeping into every cradle, looking for a Mes-
siah and in the temple that day there were faithful hearts
waiting for his coming: Simeon and Anna, two old people
grown gray in hope, each of whom might have repeated
the Browning lines :
"I am a watcher whose eyes have grown dim
With looking for a star which breaks on. him;,
Altered and worn and weak and full of tears,"
If I were painting a symbolic picture of Hope, as did
George Frederick Watts, I would select not a young
woman but an old person the face engraved by expe-
rience, the hands blue-veined and strong like those two
saints in the temple. Through the long years they
waited, expecting each day to see the Chosen One appear,
and ready to receive him. Others rejected him when he
[ 166 ]
JOSEPH FOET NEWTON
came, as we are apt to do, because lie did not come as they
thought he ought to come as their creed said he would
come in startling splendor and conquering power.
But those two old saints, wise with the wisdom that
grows not old, knew the Messiah when he came in lowly
garb and welcomed him with open arms. How unfor-
gettable is the picture; an old man takes a babe in his
arms with a thrill of joy, his trembling voice breaking
Into a song of praise because he has lived to see the con-
solation of humanity, the salvation of the Lord. His
faith had been justified, his hope fulfilled. Not many men
are so fortunate as to be ready to die, willing to die, be-
cause the promise of life has ended in realization. More
often it is the other way round, and men fall asleep weary
of waiting for a dream to come true. The words of
Simeon recall that scene at Ostia when Augustine and his
mother sat in the window talking just before she passed
to where, beyond this twilight, there is light. At last she
said: "My son, I have no further joy in life. What I do
here and why I remain here, I know not, now that the hope
of the world is gone. One thing alone made me long to
abide here for a little while, the desire to see thee a Catholic
Christian ere I died. God hath granted me this more
abundantly, in that I now see thee a servant of his, dis-
daining earthly bHss. What do I here?"
VISION IK A DEPRESSION
Surely this lesson is sorely needed in this day of deep
disappointment and depression, when so many hopes have
been blighted* so many dreams deferred the lesson, that
[167]
THE GEEAT EXPECTATION"
is, that truth comes to those who expect It, watch for it,
pray for it. It is so everywhere, in every field of human
aspiration as the astronomer, after long calculation, is
convinced that a new star is hovering on the edge of the
sty, hidden for ages. All the facts point to it. At last,
peering through stronger glasses, he sees first a dim
glimmer, and then a point of twinkling light. Darwin
brooded for years over a huge mass of facts, seeking the
law they concealed, and at last he came upon it because
he expected to find it. Of Charles Eingsley it was said
that his work as a poet was marred by the conviction that
something tremendous was going to happen about the
middle of next week. Even so, but the world could spare
its litterateurs better than it could spare its Kingsleys!
Indeed, it is almost a definition of greatness to say that it
greatly hopes ; that it does not surrender to the weakness
of despair, but lives expectantly.
HOPEFUX ADVEOTTFBERS
Nothing is easier than to be a pessimist. All a man
has to do is to give up, let go, trust his darkest moods,
and believe in the devil; the rest follows naturally. It is
doubly easy to-day, fatally easy, to repeat the cynical
beatitude, as if its wisdom were equal to its wit: Blessed
is he that does not expect anything, for he shall not be
disappointed. Not he. Such a man mistakes a sunrise
for a house on fire, and fancies that he is wise. Only those
who are truly wise and have a heart for great adventure
can obey that other beatitude, so deeply engraved in the
annals of missionary faith: Expect great things of God,
[168]
JOSEPH FOET NEWTON
attempt great things for God. Here is the true faith,
which sees in the confusion of to-day foregleams of a
greater and better to-morrow. It dares to pray for the
coming of the kingdom of heaven, not in words only,
but also, and much more, in worts, watching for it the
while as those who wait for the morning. It is a noble
attitude, in that it reads the dark present in the context
of a slow, eternal process, and finds its joy in labor for
those who are to come after.
Such must be our attitude to-day, when so many bright
expectancies are beshadowed by the vast tragedy of the
world. Time out of mind, to go no further back than
Plato and the Hebrew seers, men have dreamed of an
ideal social order in which justice shall be the rule and
liberty the sweet food of the people. Many have prayed
for it, worked for it, looked for it, many of whom the
world was not worthy; but it has not come true. These
all died in faith, not having obtained the promise; and as
Robertson of Brighton said, it would have shed a sunset
glory upon their deathbeds, if, as they went out 9 they
could have seen some new token for the race coining in
as at the dawn of a former salvation, hearts old and worn
with expectation cried, "Lord, now lettest thou thy
servant depart in peace. 9 * Nevertheless they kept the
faith, and it will be justified at last, albeit to-day it seems
like a far-off rumor amid the rumble of convulsions and
catastrophes unprecedented.
LOOKING FOB A NEW CITY
No more than they must we yield to despair, much less
[169]
THE GREAT EXPECTATION
listen to the pessimism which tells us that after this ordeal
of agony things will be as before, only worse; as Gals-
worthy seems to say in his play, "Foundations. 55 No ; the
confusion will end in time; but not so the thoughts that
have been awakened, for humanity has gone to a school
which must surely change its scheme of values. When
London was burned long ago, the great builder, Christo-
pher Wren, came forward with a plan for a new city with
wide streets all leading to the house of common prayer
which stands to-day as his monument. "His plan was
adopted, but could not be worked out because each house-
holder insisted that his house should be built exactly
where it was before. Surely it will not be so again. Even
the dullest mind must see that it is no use to rebuild a
social order which had in it the possibilities of the present
tragedy. For ages we have been trying to build a humane
order upon an inhumane basis. It cannot be done. To-
day a new solidarity and a new miracle of sacrifice give
us new hope of a time when a brave, large, brotherly spirit
shall build on earth a City of Friends.
By the same token, we must live expectantly as to the
future of the Church, now so baffled, so bewildered, so
sorely tried. Never were the critics of the Church so
relentless. They tell us that its arm-chair theology has
been knocked to pieces In the rough and tumble of the
world, that its ritual is mere rigmarole, that it is of no
use save as a museum of relics preserved from a time far
gone. Troubled by these strident rebukes of the man in
the street, many are seeking after "messages" and "re-
statements," and even "apologies," but to no avail. Truly
[170]
JOSEPH FOKT KEWTOIST
we live in the days of the Church Humilitant, when the
Church Is taunted with good-natured contempt and an
ever-growing neglect. Hence an attitude of defeatism, if
not a spiritual inferiority-complex, in the Church itself,
of which it needs to be healed. For there are signs of a
better day, despite many dismal predictions. There is a
passion for reality, and a yearning for a deeper, more
experimental fellowship in which old schisms shall be
healed. There is a longing for prophetic leadership and,
above all and through all, a desire to realize great social
and democratic ideals under spiritual influences. Many
humiliations are teaching us humility, and we may yet
learn that the Church does not rest upon creed or ritual,
but upon Christ, its Lord and leader.
It may be that God is preparing some deeper disclosure
of himself in the midst of this bitter tragedy ; but that is
his business. One thing is clear, if there is to be a revival
of faith and renewal of vision, it will come to those who
expect it, who are praying for it and watching for it.
Meantime, our business is to seek the mind of Christ,
that so we may make the things of the spirit a kingdom
of realities here and now in the lives we live on the earth,
The Church does not exist to do everything, but to do
the one thing without which nothing else is worth doing.
If it is in any worthy sense the Body of Christ, it must be
a union of those who love in the service of those who
suffer, and thus "organize God's light/* Not in a day
can the Church exorcise the ills wrought by a godless
generation of politicians in every nation who have scouted
its teaching. But it can help to heal the wounds of a
C "I ]
THE GBEAT EXPECTATION
world in agony, and the full, broad, deep outgoing of its
compassion none can deny. Just now its ministry is
there, or nowhere.
There is, however, a profounder expectation and appeal
in his theme to every follower of him who came as a bahe
to the temple. The deepest desire of the Christian heart,
its holiest longing, is to realize Christ, not as a hero in
history, not as a figure loving amid the shadows of ideas,
but as a Living Presence. Dale, Bushnell, and Tauler
tell us how they read about Christ, argued about him,
brooded over his truth for years, and one day at the
corner of the street, so to speak, they met him in a new,
more intimate, more revealing fellowship like the disci-
ples at Emmaus. They went back to the familiar pages of
the Gospels and found them radiant with a light that was
never on sea or land. ShaU we ever know that assurance?
Now we see through a glass darkly ; shall we ever see the
Living Truth face to face? Shall we ever know that
which is now hinted to us in signs, symbols, sacraments?
Yes, if we are faithful and expectant. So of old the Lord
came to those who waited in the temple, so he will come
to us.
LITE AK UNFINISHED SYMPHONY
In a world wistful with half -revelations we keep vigil in
our hearts, waiting for the coming of the Sons of God
those large, eternal Fellows who will not only interpret
the lower by the higher, but give the highest command.
Often disappointed, but never losing hope, we are sure of
one thing, that the curtain has not yet rung up on the
last act of the world drama ; there is more, and that more
[172]
JOSEPH FOET 3EWTON
may come any moment with surprising and satisfying
suddenness. Human life is a symphony, but it is an un-
finislied symphony, and we are waiting the last movement,
the lost, or yet undiscovered, chord which will give mean-
ing to the discord at the very moment when it is re-
solved. That is melody. We cannot hear the birds sing,
look into the eyes of a friend, or behold the heroisms and
loyalties of men, without knowing that there is melody;
but it is a broken melody, and "nature slides into semi-
tones, sinks into a minor, blunts into a ninth, and still we
wait the C-major of this life."
Yet always there is a sense of Something very near,
trying to lay hands upon us; Something seeking to make
itself seen and heard and felt. The world aches with the
stress of a Silence that tries to speak, but it is tongue-
tied as in sleep, because we do not hear. Here and there a
hint, a gleam, of the Eternal bursts through, and as much,
or as little, as we see is our religion. Now and then in the
face of the very young or the very old we see the flash of
a Face, looming in the distance, veiled in beauty, yet com-
ing nearer and nearer the Face of the Future Man, the
Christ-Man, who will be gentle, just, heroic, happy, and
free. That Face will yet appear here on this blood-
bathed earth, where even to-day the trumpet is still blown
for war ; that Image will break through every window of
the world. God is the everlasting future !
HUMAKITY^S HEEOIC HOPE
There remains the great expectation of eternal life, the
ancient, high, heroic faith of humanity. To-day it is not
[173]
THE GREAT EXPECTATION"
simply a wistful yearning, but an eager, insistent longing
for reunion with those torn from us. And not with them
only, but with all those who left us in the long ago, taking
our hearts with them when they went away. Is faith a
dream? Nay, but the lack of it is the dream, and failing
it all the lore of life is but a tale told by an idiot. Aspira-
tion is not mocked ; God is not the God of the dead but of
those who are alive forevermore. He is as young as the
dawn, and as hopeful, and as ready for new adventure.
He who filled our hearts with the hauntings of an eternal
to-morrow will not leave us in the dust. He is Life, he is
Love, he is Joy, and his immortality is stamped, as his
signature, upon all that he has made. In him we live here
and hereafter, and because he lives we shall live also, death-
less as our Father is deathless :
"Lord, where Thou art our happy dead must be;
Unpierced as yet the Sacramental Mist,
But we are nearest them when nearest Thee
In solemn Eucharist.
Lord, we crave for those gone home to Thee,
For those who made our earthly homes so fair;
How little may we know, how little see,
Only that Thou art there.
Dear hands, unclasped from ours, are clasping Thine,
Thou boldest us forever in Thy heart;
So dose the one Communion are we
In very truth apart?
Lord, where Thou art our blessed dead must be,
And if with Thee, what then their boundless bliss !
Till Faith is sight, and Hope reality*
Love's anchorage is this I"
[ 174]
xn
The Mind of Christ
RAYMOND CALKINS
MOTSTEB, FIEST CHTJECH, CAMBRIDGE, MASS.
RAYMOND CALKINS was bora in 1869
at Buffalo, N. Y. He graduated from Harvard
University with tlie A.B. and M.A. degrees.
He is also a graduate of the Harvard Divinity
School. The honorary degree of Doctor of
Divinity has been conferred upon him.
He was ordained in the Congregational min-
istry. He was pastor of Pilgrim Memorial
Church, Pittsfield, Mass., and of State Street
Church, Portland, Me. He is now pastor of
the First Congregational Church, Cambridge,
Mass.
He has been Beecher Lectoer on Preach-
ing at Yale University.
He is the author of many books, the best
known of which are The Christian Idea in the
Modern World, The Christian Church in the
Modern World, The Eloquence of Christian
Experience, and The Holy Spirit.
He is a scholar, philosopher, and prophetic
preacher.
XII
THE MIND OF CHRIST
BAYMONB CAUEIHS
Have this mind in yon which was also in
Christ Jesus. PHILIPPIAHS 2: 5.
THE great need in our day is that the mind of Christ
should be brought to bear on all the problems and diffi-
culties which beset and vex the life of the world. What is
needed above all else is the broad and free operation and
application of the mind of Christ. If the mind of Christ
could penetrate all our affairs, we should soon find our
way out of the bewilderment which now baffles us, out of
the wilderness and into the Promised Land.
The immediate necessity is that every Christian should
understand that his prime duty at the present hour is to
understand what the mind of Christ is, and then apply it
directly upon present and practical problems. It is only
so that the Church can make its influence and its witness
felt. We are living 1 in critical times. The last ten years
have been called the most important years in the moral
life of mankind. During the next ten years issues will be
decided which will determine the moral life of the world
for many generations. Greater changes, we are told, are
impending to-day in the whole structure of human society
than, at any time since the ice age. There has not been an
era in the whole history of the Church when its moral
leadership was more needed. If at such a time the Church
[ 177 ]
MUSTD OF CHBIST
fluence felt, then it must be frankly ad-
iu- x that tho.e critics of the Church are justified who
say that "the traditional religions, however valid and in-
spiring in the past, were made possible only by ignorance
and that all the Western Churches are obsolescent in
power over the minds that count if not in actual num-
bers." 1
It is not "numbers'* which to-day should most concern
the Church. The question which confronts and sharply
challenges us is whether the Church is "obsolescent in
power over the minds that count/ 5 Our greatest need
to-day is not for more people who call themselves Chris-
tians, but for more people already calling themselves
Christians who understand what it means to be a Chris-
tian. Mere numbers count for nothing at such an hour.
Neither do pronouncements by Church leaders or by
Church assemblies count for much, so long as the mind of
the people as a whole who are Church members, and mate
up its constituency, is so little Christian. What should
trouble our conscience to-day, and rouse us to action, is
that it is so difficult, if it is not impossible, to distinguish
between the mind of those who call themselves Christians,
and those who do not ; that the level of thinking, and thus
of acting, is no higher amongst the one than amongst the
other. What should concern us is that the rank and file
of Church people do not grasp what the mind of Christ
is, and are not bold and active in applying it to all our
present problems. The Church will demonstrate that it
1 Edmund Wilson, in "What I Believe," The Nation, January 27,
[178]
EAYMOXD CALKINS
is not "obsolescent In power over the minds that count 95
only as a rapidly increasing number of its peopV. who call
themselves Christians recover a vivid sense of what the
mind of Christ is, and become thus an active and pene-
trating influence in society, a force which guides and
determines our social action. This is imperative, the in-
sistent, the immediate duty of the Church in the day in
which we live. It is only in this way that the Church can
demonstrate its moral leadership and vindicate its claim
to moral authority over the affairs of man. For the mind
of Christ will be found to be far more searching, far more
exacting, and far more effective than law, regulation, or
legislation. It is "quick, and powerful, and sharper than
any two-edged sword, piercing even to the dividing asun-
der of soul and spirit, and is a discerner of the thoughts
and intents of the heart." It is upon the mind of Christ
working through individuals and shaping and inspiring
our policies that we must depend to straighten out the
tangles in our affairs. That is the only force that is equal
to so huge a task.
What is the mind of Christ? It is not something that
is vague and indefinite, difficult to apprehend, imprac-
ticable of application. On the contrary, it is something
quite clear and concrete, easy to understand and capable
of immediate use. Consider some of the characteristics of
the mind of Christ.
In the first place, it is an independent mind: a mind
that is able to rise above the current and conventional
ideas that govern the conduct of the majority of men.
The mind of Christ was not controlled by the ruling ideas
[170]
THE MIND OF CHBIST
of his day. On the contrary, he detached himself from
them, rose above them, and viewed the whole structure of
society from the higher vantage ground of his own out-
look. One of the most distinctive characteristics of the
mind of Christ lay in this independence of opinion. Again
and again he said : **Ye have heard that it hath been said
by them of old time, but I say unto you." His ideas did
not conform to tradition and were not governed by cus-
tom. He was able to resist the compulsion of popular
opinion and to frame his own standards of thinking and
action.
Anyone who shares the mind of Christ must exercise the
same capacity for independent opinion. He must be able
to dispossess himself of all local and racial prejudice. In
a word, he must be a nonconformist. It was a great say-
ing of Emerson that to be a man it is necessary to be a
nonconformist. Certainly it is necessary if one would be
a Christian.
Such an attitude, it needs to be remembered, demands
more than moral courage. It demands also moral insight.
One must rid oneself, as Jesus rid himself, of predisposi-
tions acquired by tradition and training, which assume
an almost sacred sanction and authority. Such ideas
tend to form the very warp and woof of one's thinking
and character; they become fixed and immovable. The
capacity of moral and critical insight is destroyed. One
becomes the victim, as it iwere, of the traditions of one
clan or class. One loses b$th the desire and the ability to
break through the social and economic and political theo-
ries in which one has grown up. One lives and moves and
[180]
EAYMOOT) CALKINS
has his being within a certain set of ideas above which he
never rises. They are for him finalities which are not
subject to review. To question them, to doubt them, to
deny them is a kind of lese-majeste. Who does so is a
kind of heretic, a traitor, a rank outsider.
Yet nothing is clearer than that all the progress which
the world has ever made has been due to those who were
capable of breaking through the hardened crust of con-
ventional opinion, and blazing new paths, announcing
new ideas: men like Socrates and Rabelais, Emerson,
Swift and Ruskin, who were able to get beneath contem-
porary and conventional opinion, show up the shabbiness
and insincerities of the existing order of things, shake
the people out of their smug complacency, and so point
the way to better things.
But the point to remember is that Jesus is the Supreme
Example of this power of moral detachment and insight ;
of moral penetration and uncompromising criticism of
conventional beliefs and customs. Consequently, people
who call themselves Christian must seek to have in them
the mind of Christ. We speak of the Imitation of Christ.
We accept as a commonplace that we are to follow his
example, walk in his steps, and undeviatingly accept his
leadership. As an inevitable corollary, then, there must
be the duty of preserving and cultivating this independ-
ence of mind, resisting the bondage of convention, of dis-
trusting the axioms and shibboleths of traditional ideas.
In a word, if we would be truly Christian, we must be
capable of this form of mental penetration and of moral
insight.
[181]
THE MIND OF CHEIST
But just here is where, it would seem, the rank and file
of Christian people fail. And because they fail, it can
be affirmed that the Church has lost its power "over minds
that count. 55 All that one has to do is to imagine what
t* e immense influence of the Church would be if every one
who calls himself a Christian were really capable of such
independent thinking, to see where our failure lies. It is
precisely because it often seems impossible to distinguish
between the mind of the Church and the mind of the
secular community that the Church has been called obso-
lescent, negligible, as a moral factor in the world in which
we live. Unless the mind of the Christian can be more
independent, more nonconformist, more capable of resist-
ing and rising above conventional ideas and thus doing its
own thinking and pointing to higher and finer things, it is
useless to expect our Churches to possess any degree of
moral leadership. They may swell their membership lists,
put up costly edifices, increase their endowments but they
will not be an active constructive influence in shaping a
better world and a truer form of human society. But that
Jesus expected that his disciples would thus be a restless
and generative influence in the world is plain. Precisely
this is what he had in mind when he said: "Ye are the
salt of the earth." Ye are a bit of penetrating leaven in
the lump. In proportion as each Christian possesses this
quality of saltiness, this virtue of yeastiness in his think-
ing and living, will the Church become a moral power in
the world. It is a cause for lamentation that so often
this capacity for independent thinking is found outside
of organized Christianity, and that institutional religion
[182]
RAYMO3STD CALKINS
seems to be synonymous with conventional ideas, and to
be the custodian, as it was in Jesus' day, of traditional
custom. In what respect, one may ask, does average
Church opinion differentiate itself from average popular
opinion in politics, racial relations, or the great inter-
national problems of our time? Suppose the Apostolic
injunction were heard and obeyed by all who profess and
call themselves Christians: "Have in you the mind that
was in Christ." How quickly the Church would take on a
moral significance and exert a moral influence which now
it seems to lack !
In the next place, the mind of Christ is distinguished
by a Mgh degree of moral courage. Christ was capable
not only of independent thinking, but also of applying
his ideas courageously to the problems of the hour. It
was for this that he incurred first the hostility and then
the implacable enmity of the defenders of the existing
status quo. Then, he stood up in the synagogue at Naza-
reth and applied his broad and humanitarian ideas to the
intense and selfish nationalism which was part of the con-
ventional Judaism of his day. Thus, he completely ig-
nored racial prejudices. He sat down at noonday and
talked with a Samaritan woman. He excited the hostile
comment of scribe and Pharisee by eating with publicans
and sinners. He disregarded canon law by the use he
made of Scripture and of the Sabbath day. He not only
announced certain ideas as true and right, but he applied
them with simplicity and sincerity to existing social and
political and ecclesiastical customs, let the chips fall
where they would. Independent thinking was a prelude
[183]
THE MEND OF CHRIST
to independent action. The mind of Christ not only ar-
rived at certain ideas, but also put them to work.
To have the mind of Christ the Christian must possess
the same degree of moral courage. The early New Testa-
ment Christians showed this in a marked degree. For
them, Christianity was not "a decent formula wherewith
to embellish the comfortable life. 55 It was a summons, a
cause, a clarion call to action. They were willing to wit-
ness for their beliefs ; to be what the word "witness 35 means
martyrs for what they believed. And the Christian
mind in its essence and at its best has always had their
characteristic a glad willingness to stand for what one
believes, to seek to make it prevail, in the face of hostile
opinion.
Here, again, one touches on a weakness in contemporary
Christianity, the secret of its failure to exercise the high-
est moral leadership. Too often, in a word, there is a
passive mental acceptance of Christian ideas, but no pas-
sionate purpose to apply them and thus make them pre-
vail. One professes one's faith in the Christian way of
life of brotherhood, of peaceableness, of love and good
will and justice. But there is absent a rigid and deter-
mined motive to live these ideas out in actual practice.
There is a striking absence of a militant morality in the
thought and life of the Church.
A Christian who has the mind of Christ must be militant
in the application of his Christian ideas. He must cer-
tainly be internationally-minded, for example ; a Crusader
for a world order which exorcises hatred, banishes war,
and substitutes law for violence in adjusting its affairs.
[184]
RAYMOKB CM.KOSFS
There can be no question that the mind of Christ out-
laws a selfish and egotistical and narrow nationalism, and
declares for cooperation, brotherhood, and mutual service
in international relations. The mind of Christ and the war
system are utterly incompatible. A Christian who shares
the mind of Christ must perforce be an internationally
minded man. One may differ from another in method and
policy. A Christian may not favor the League of Na-
tions. But he must stand for brotherliness and sympathy
between nations. It is hard to see how he can be an
isolationist or opposed to any effort to share the burdens
or to have part in the struggles of other people to attain
stability and peace. Yet I have heard of "Churches'*
whose members were so incrusted in conventional forms
of nationalism that they would not listen to sermons
favoring a new and more Christian world order. Suppose
that all Christians so called were active promoters of
such a world order; should divest themselves of partisan
political ideas, resist all appeals to fear, rise above the
low level of contemporary opinion, defy the group-
opinion and become free and ardent protagonists of high
and noble international ideals then how strong and con-
vincing the moral leadership of the Church would be.
Or here is our economic and industrial life, so full of
uneasiness, of inequalities, of injustice. No thinking man
can readily believe that our present economic system can
long endure on its present foundations. The mind of
Christ, if brought to bear OH the present organization of
industry, will inevitably project the question: a ls the
present economic system beneficent and permanent in the
[185]
THE MIND OF CBG&IST
name of justice, economy, and the best and highest in-
terests of mankind as a whole?" Yet it is precisely in the
hands of professedly Christian people that the ordering
of that system rests. Could any greater blessing befall
mankind to-day than that the great leaders in our financial
and industrial world should seek to have in them the mind
of Christ and seek resolutely to re-form our affairs and
bring them more nearly in accord with the principles of
their religion? Does not the whole difficulty in our pres-
ent situation rest here : that Christian men and women do
no such thing? Is it true or false that Christian people
"as a rule bring to their major business, professional, or
even political occupations a cultivated bias in favor of
things as they are"? But to have the mind of Christ is
precisely not to have any "cultivated bias 5 '; rather it is
to have what has been called "the noblest, the rarest, the
most difficult to admire of all human ambitions," an open
mind, eagerly expectant of new discoveries, and devoted
to the propagation of new ideas in any form of human
association. What would it not mean for the welfare of
the world to-day if these who wear the name of Christ
had and employed the mind of Christ?
One more characteristic of the mind of Christ must be
mentioned. It was distinguished by a deep and beautiful
humility. This aspect of the mind of Christ was in the
apostle's mind when he used the phrase. Two high-strung
women in the PhiHppian Church were exhorted to be at
peace with each other, by recovering the mind of Christ,
who, though he was rich, made himself poor that we
through his poverty might become rich* It is startling to
[186]
EAYMQND CALKINS
discover that the fullest statement of the Incarnation to
be found in the New Testament was made to compose the
quarrels of two otherwise unknown, turbulent women who
were disturbing the life of one of these early Christian
communities. Yet the only way in which peace could be
attained was as each of them had in her the mind of
Christ, esteemed the other better than herself, and achieved
the lowliness of Him who "did not lift up nor cause his
voice to be heard in the streets."
The virtue of humility is not particularly congenial to
the modern man. It is not an evident characteristic of
the average American mind. Yet to its absence we can
trace many, if not most, of our ills. What is the ulti-
mate cause of our domestic unrest, of the upheavals and
disintegration in family life, which constitutes one of our
gravest problems? It is precisely the spirit of pride, of
an exaggerated egotism, of self-assertion, the absence of
consideration, of humility and good will. If people who
call themselves Christians could achieve the humility of
the mind of Christ, they would not think of themselves
more highly than they ought to think, would not seek to
avenge themselves, but would bear one another's burdens
and so fulfill the law of Christ. Only so shall we attain
peace and stability in place of family discord and dis-
ruption.
And what is the cause of our national lawlessness which
threatens the very fabric of government and disgraces
our social order? It is the insistence of personal rights
and personal liberty in entire disregard of the common
welfare. One of the most eloquent letters of President
[187]
THE MIND OF CHRIST
Eliot, quoted in the biography of Henry James, was
written in explanation of his position in favor of National
Prohibition. This staunch defender of personal liberty
found no inconsistency in such a position. Convinced of
the social evil of alcoholism, he found that it was rea-
sonable and right for the individual to waive his personal
rights in favor of the common good to deny oneself the
right to drink if it caused his brother to offend. It was a
simple exercise of the self-denying mind of Christ.
What is the cause of our racial conflicts and antag-
onisms? Is it not the swagger, the boastfulness, the as-
sumption of the superiority of one race over another, the
feeling of contempt of one race for another? We shall
never compose our racial differences until we attain a
measure of racial humility, of frank recognition of the
virtues, the capacities of other peoples, a desire to profit
from what they can do for us, as well as to share with
them what we have to give. When one has in him the
mind of Christ, he never uses derogatory epithets about
any race or people, never draws hard and fast lines, and
rises superior to what has been called the American caste
system, as inhuman and deadly as the world has ever seen.
And how will Peace between nations be finally achieved?
It was a great saying of Felix Adler that we shall never
have universal Peace until we attain a degree of national
humility. So long as our national consciousness is bump-
tious and selfish and self-assertive considering only its
own rights, its own independence, and unwilling to sacri-
fice a shred of its sovereignty so long Peace will remain
a dream, unattainable by any methods or device or out-
[188]
EAYM01STD CALKINS
ward manipulation. Not until the mind of Christ, who,
although he was rich, made himself poor that others
through his voluntary humiliation might be made rich
not until such a mind has become the mind of this and
every other nation will we have Peace upon earth to men
of good will.
The mind of Christ ! We end as we began : this is our
greatest need. The preponderant majority of the Amer-
ican people are professedly Christian. The greatest obli-
gation which rests upon them is to have in them the mind
of Christ. If the people that are in our Churches to-day
could possess the independence and the courage and the
humility of the mind of Christ, then indeed his kingdom
would come, his will be done on earth, even as it is in
heaven.
[189]
XIII
Religious Faith: Privilege or Problem?
HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK
MINISTEE, EIVEESIDE CHTTECH
NEW YOEK CITY
HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK was born
in 1878 at Buffalo, N. Y. He graduated from
Colgate University with the A.B. degree. He
received the M.A. degree and the B.D. degree
from Columbia University and Union Theolog-
ical Seminary. The honorary degrees of Doc-
tor of Divinity and Doctor of Laws have been
conferred upon him by various universities.
He was ordained in the Baptist ministry.
He has been pastor of the First Church, Mont-
clair, N. J. He was the minister of the First
Presbyterian Church, New York City, and has
been the minister of the beautiful new River-
side Church since 1927. He built this church.
He is an annual preacher at colleges and
universities. He is a trustee of Colgate Uni-
versity and Smith College.
Together with his other duties, he is the Pro-
fessor of Practical Theology at Union Theo-
logical Seminary.
He is the author of many books, the best
known being the trilogy on Prayer, Faith, and
Service, The Modern Use of the Bible, Ad-
venturous Religion) and A Pilgrimage to Pales-
tine*
Dr. Fosdick preaches over the radio every
Sunday afternoon. He is a prophet in this
modern age.
XIII
RELIGIOUS FAITH: PRIVILEGE OR PROBLEM?
HARRY EMEESON FOSDICK
The Lord is my strength and song.
PSALM 118: 14.
WE could take our text almost at random from the book
of Psalms. "The Lord is my strength and song." These
words happen to come from the 118th Psalm, but they
express a characteristic attitude of all genuine religion.
We must recognize, however, that there are many people
to-day deeply interested in religion, concerned about it
and given to much thought upon it, who could not say
that at all. What they would have to say would be very
different: The Lord is my problem. How familiar that is !
God is a problem; prayer is a problem; the Church is a
problem; the Bible is a problem; immortality is a prob-
lem. Everything about religion has become a problem,
difficult to solve, much worried over, and long discussed.
On one of our college campuses there has been held for
years the annual Week of Prayer. This year they have
changed the name. It now becomes the Annual Religious
Forum, and with that charming candor which makes the
younger generation famous, the editor of the college paper
explains why. The editorial reads:
. . . The venerable institution formerly called the
Week of Prayer lias at last been relieved of the weight
[193]
FAITH: PRIVILEGE cm PEOBLEM?
of a misnomer. . . . With tlie thoroughly modern sound-
ing name, "Annual Religions Forum/' we feel that it
ought to enjoy a new lease of life. . . .
The word "forum" means a place where questions
are thrown open to discnssion. This word expresses per-
fectly the modern attitude toward religion. . . .
Instead of furnishing an inexhaustible well of peace,,
religion has become a source of harassed confusion. The
painful attempt to work out religious problems for our-
selves has taken the place of acquiescence of authority.
Well, there you have it. That is truth well put. There
are few things more typical of our contemporary religious
situation than that. For multitudes of people religion
has ceased being their strength and song, and has become
a matter of discussion and debate. The characteristic
symbol of much, modern religion has become the discus-
sion group. Surely, a good deal of our religious dryness,
our lack of spiritual spring and spontaneity, our dearth
of j oy and radiance goes back to that. Some generations
are predominantly appreciative. They enjoy their re-
ligion. They make a festival of it. They create great
music to celebrate it and build classic cathedrals to en-
shrine it. And some generations are predominantly crit-
ical. They ask questions, raise doubts, seek for reasons,
analyze their faith. The first kind of generation instinc-
tively cries, "The Lord is my strength and song," but the
second finds the Lord a very difficult problem indeed.
There is, I take it, no doubt as to which kind of genera-
tion we are living in. One hears it commonly said to-day
that there never was a time when there was more interest
in religion than now. That may be so. At a typical
[194]
HABBY EME&SOX FOSSICK
midnight session on a college campus one may be fairly
sure that two subjects will be discussed: love and religion
but, mark it ! it is religion as a matter of debate ; it is
religion being botanized, its stamens and pistils being
classified and tabulated ; it is not religion as a matter of
joyful confidence and song.
Let us face frankly the disabilities of this situation, for,
with all the advantages of it, a generation where the sym-
bol of religion has become a discussion group has its dis-
abilities. So we recall the familiar whimsy :
"A centipede was happy quite,
Until a frog in fun
Saidj *Pray 3 which leg comes after which? 5
This raised her mind to such a pitch.
She lay distracted in the ditch,
Considering how to run."
Multitudes of religious people are precisely in the same
case with that centipede. Once their religion was spon-
taneous. They took it for granted; they depended on it
and lived by it. But now, with many questions raised
concerning it, it has become a problem, and they lie dis-
tracted in the ditch.
To all of this I can imagine some one saying: But re-
ligion is a problem, and nothing that anyone can say will
stop its being that. Here on the one side we have an in-
herited faith, with imaginations of God and his relation to
the universe at large and us within it formulated in pre~
scientific ages, before men dreamed that the earth went
about the sun; and on the other side all this new knowl-
edge from Galileo to Einstein. Religion is a problem.
RELIGIOUS FAITH: PEITILEGE OR PEOBLEM?
What do yon think of God? How do you imagine him?
What do you make of prayer? How do you justify the
idea that God is good in the presence of the miseries of
men? How can you argue for the ultimate sacredness of
personality, and how do you picture immortality? It is
a problem. You may not like it that religion has ceased
being for so many people a singing confidence by which
they gladly live and has become a matter of debate, but
it is a problem, and no wishing will stop its being that.
To which I answer: Very well, it is all that to me.
Once it was not. In my adolescent youth I took religion
for granted, without question, and then one year in a
storm the questions came. Since then religion has been a
problem. It will be till I die. My life's vocation is to
face religious problems. If I had a thousand lives, I
would use every one of them for that. I have no use for
an uncritical religion that is afraid of questions. But,
for all that, I refuse to lie distracted in the ditch.
Consider. Nature is a problem too. Ask the scientists
and see abyss after abyss of problems unsolved and
questions unanswered there. If you approach it from
that one angle, move up to it by that one road, concen-
trate your thought on that one aspect of it, Nature can
loom as a gigantic problem. That, however, is not the
whole story. Nature is my strength and song. I love
her. I love her mountains and her seas, her quiet moods
and the grandeur of her storms. In winter time, amid
the canons of these city streets, I comfort my soul with
memories of her trees. I hunger for the lakes where the
trout rise, and for the dash of her sea spray on windy
[196]
HABEY EMERSON FOSDICK
days. If 3 now, you say, You have no right so naively to
enjoy nature when nature has become a tremendous prob-
lem with thousands of unanswered questions there, I say,
Starve your own soul if you will, but not mine.
... How oft
In darkness and amid the many shapes
Of joyless daylight; when the fretful stir
Unprofitable, and the fever of the world.
Have hung upon the beatings of my heart
How oft, in spirit, have I turned to thee,
O sylvan Wye! thou wanderer through the woods,
How often has my spirit turned to theel"
Problem or no problem, nature is my strength and song.
Or, again, the family is a problem too. Indeed it is.
If religion has gotten over into the discussion-group class,
what will one say about the family? Read some books
<j *j
about it, listen to some speeches on it, and one would
suppose that the family was that alone. No theory as to
family life is unquestioned and no practice is beyond
doubt. That, however, is not the whole story. There are
some of us yet to whom the family is our strength and
our song.
We of the older generation well remember Prof. John
Fiske of Harvard. Once he wrote a letter to his wife de-
scribing a visit with Herbert Spencer, the philosopher.
He was being entertained in Mr. Spencer's English home,
and when Mr. Spencer asked him about his family he
showed him a picture of his wife and children. That night
he wrote his wife about it: "I showed Spencer the little
picture of our picnic-wagon with the children inside.
When I realized how lonely he must be without any wife
[ 1971
RELIGIOUS FAITH: PRIVILEGE OR PROBLEM?
and babies of his own, and how solitary he is in all his
greatness, I had to pity him. Then as I watched him
studying that picture and gazing at our children's faces I
said to myself, 'That wagonload of youngsters is worth
more than all the philosophy ever concocted, from Aris-
totle to Spencer inclusive ! 5 ?>
So be itl If, now, one says, But you have no right so
naively to enjoy the family when everybody knows that
the family in modern thought has become a problem, I
say, Starve your own soul if you will, but not mine. To
some of us yet the home is the loveliest relationship on
earth, our strength and joy.
To-day we are claiming that exactly that same thing is
true about religion* Every area of life is made up of two
aspects, problem and privilege. If a man tries to monopo-
lize the privilege alone and forget the problem, he becomes
a sentimentalist. Granted that! That is a familiar
emphasis to-day. But if a man becomes so obsessed with
problems, holds them so closely to his eye that he can see
nothing else, he becomes dry, sophisticated, unhappy, un-
creative, futile. And particularly in religion he ceases
having strength and song and has only a debate.
Consider, for example, the central matter of religion
God. Say that very word to some people to-day, and their
instinctive response is a puzzled awareness of difficulty.
There have been generations when the thought of God
brought back a singing answer :
"Holy, holy, holy, Lord God of Hosts!
Heaven, and earth are full of thy glory."
[198]
HAEEY EMEBSON FOSDICK
But to-day try the psychological test on many a casual
Christian, saying, "God," and see what a stream of ques-
tions you start. Is there really a God? What is he like?
How do you imagine him? How can you justify Ms ways
with men? What a problem he is ! Well, of course, he is
a problem. Here we are with our little minds developing
for a few millennia upon this midget planet in an im-
measurable cosmos. Do we expect that with our butterfly
nets we can capture the sun at noon, that we expect with
our wits to capture the blazing truth about the Power
that made all things? The idea of God is the most august
that ever allured the imagination of man. That is no
reason, however, why we should lie distracted in the ditch.
After all, what we are driving at when we think of God is
not obscure. It can be clearly put.
There are two sides to us, the physical and the spir-
itual. There are two sets of faculties, not far off but
here in us, the world of matter and the world of spiritual
values on the one side things that we can see, touch,
weigh, and measure; on the other side, the invisible, the
intangible, the love of goodness, truth, and beauty. On
the one side is what we call body, on the other side what
we call soul. When, now, we say that we believe in God
we mean that never can we adequately interpret the Power
that made us in terms of the physical alone, that the spir-
itual life came from Spiritual Life, and that by the road
that starts in us as spirit we must send our thought out
toward God.
If that is true, we do not need to solve all the problems
about God before we begin to enjoy Mm. Spiritual life
[199]
EELIGIOUS FAITH: PEIYIUEGE OE PEOBLEM?
Is here. Here is where we first meet it and most prac-
tically deal with it not far off, that we must climb the
steeps to bring it down, but here. Whatever goodness,
truth, beauty, love are, there is the Lif e Divine ; there we
most intimately know it and most practically handle it.
There is the near end of God. And that Life Divine,
loved and served, can be our strength and song.
How many problems there are about this envelope of
atmosphere encompassing our globe 1 Men send up bal-
loons and airplanes yet to find answers to unanswered
questions about its extent, its density, its quality. Man,
however, does not need to solve all the problems about
the atmosphere before he begins to enjoy the air. That
is here. We can breathe it, love it, live by it. There are
times when man ought to puzzle his mind about the prob-
lems of the atmosphere, but there are other times when a
man does well to say. Give me this northwest wind that
blows the fog away ; I love it.
Unless a man is a downright, dogmatic atheist, he can
have that same kind of experience with God. We do not
need to solve all the problems about God before we can
begin to be enriched by him. As one listens to this con-
temporary debate one longs to speak one's mind. Discuss
God, one would say ; he is well worth discussing, and there
are depths beyond depths there that the longest plummets
of your debate will never reach; but for your souPs sake
enjoy him, depend on him, live by him, be true to him.
When you say "God" you mean spiritual life projected
to the very center of the universe. But that spiritual life
which you are projecting to the center of the universe is
HAEEY EMERSOIST POSBICK
also here. Here is where you start with it. Wherever
goodness shines or love and beauty sing, there is the near
end of God. Love him here; be true to him; be enriched
by him.
One feels sure that some people present are in this line
of fire. They are excessively problem-conscious. It is a
familiar type of modern pathology. For there is nothing
that cannot be reduced to a problem. English literature
can, and some of us have seen it done. There are prob-
lems historical about Shakespeare's plays, problems
biographical about his life, problems concerning the
derivation of his plots, problems of scansion and prosody,
of diction and vocabulary. How Shakespeare can be re-
duced to a problem, and how some of us have seen it done
in the classroom until we wanted to cry, Just for an hour,
just for an hour let us declare a moratorium on problems
and enjoy him!
"Wilt thou be gone? it is not yet near day:
It was the nightingale, and not the lark,
That pierced the fearful hollow of thine ear;
Nightly she sings on yon pomegranate tree:
Believe me, love, it was the nightingale."
To be sure, there are literary problems about Romeo and
Juliet, but, after all, Romeo and Juliet are among the
loveliest lovers in the world. Once in a while at least,
enjoy them. To be so obsessed with problems about
Shakespeare that you lose Shakespeare that is a pity.
But there are multitudes to-day who so lose God.
There must be lives here that will bear witness to the
need of this emphasis. You have problems about Christ.
[201]
EELIGIOUS FAITH: PRIVILEGE OE PROBIJEM?
Well, of course you do, problems about the ancient docu-
ments where his life was recorded, about the stories of his
birth, the miracles attributed to him, the prescientific
world-views he shared with his generation, the early
Church's theological interpretations of him endless prob-
lems. And such is the capacity of the human mind to be
obsessed with problems, even when dealing with something
singularly beautiful, that there are many people to-day
who never get any nearer to Christ than that. He is a
problem.
That is not simply a pity; that deserves to be called
stupid. To be sure, to neglect the problems as though
they were not there, so that, credulously uncritical, one
writes a life of Christ such as Papini did, that is stupid
too, sentimentally stupid. But, after all, my friends, the
most significant thing that ever happens on this planet is
the coming of great personality. In science or art or re-
ligion that is true. The whole world steps forward when
great personality arrives. He breaks like a tremendous
wave through the sand bars that have barricaded us until
all we lesser waves can flow in after him.
So came Christ to the world. Do we really mean that
in his teachings of the good life, that go before us yet like
a pillar of cloud by day and of fire by night, we can see
nothing but problems? In that luminous personality that
incarnated them and made those teachings beautiful, so
that across the centuries men like George Matheson have
said, "Son of Man, whenever I doubt of life, I think of
Thee," and men like George Tyrrell have said, "Again and
again I have been tempted to give up the struggle, but
[202]
HAERY EMEBSQX FOSSICK
always the figure of that Strange Man hanging on the
cross sends me back to my task again," do you see noth-
ing but problems?
That is being pathologically problem-conscious. That
is like taking a Beethoven sonata and seeing there nothing
but a puzzle of date, composition, documentation, rendi-
tion, until that one thing is forgotten which is most worth
remembering, that a Beethoven sonata is very beautiful
and can enrich the spirit. This is one reason why we
built a church like this in a community which so continual-
ly discusses religion. In that particular, this is one reason
why Sunday afternoons we have a service where we do
not talk about religion but sing it. One of you said to
me the other day, "That afternoon ministry of music
almost saves my life, for I discuss religion all the week,
and I need something to encourage me to love it."
Be sure of this : anybody who finds in religion nothing
but discussion never commends it to anybody. In any
realm, be it science or art or religion, nobody commends
anything to anybody unless he first enjoys it, glories in
it, depends on it, and is enriched by it. Wanted, there-
fore, Christians fearless and honest, to be sure, in facing
problems, but so deeply enriched by their religion, so
practically living it, that they commend it as a subject
well deserving to be discussed!
You have problems about prayer. Of course you have,
endless problems. Be honest with them. But, I beg of
you, find some way of praying that Is real to you. Do
not let prayer stay merely a puzzle. A friend once said
to me, "I do not pray the way you do." "Well," I said,
[203]
RELIGIOUS FAITH: PRIVILEGE OB PROBLEM?
"how do you pray?" And he answered, "On the piano."
I have heard him doing it, improvising. From the too
hectic fret of modern business he turned at times to an-
other spiritual technique, opened himself, became respon-
sive, and talked with the Divine in a language that steadied
and enriched him. If you cannot pray as you would, then
pray as you can; but do not leave that great realm in-
volved in prayer and worship merely a problem.
Or you have problems about the Bible. I hold a chair
in a theological seminary on that subject, so that when
you have told all the problems about the Scripture that
puzzle you, I ought to be able to go on and tell you others
still; but that is no reason for lying distracted in the
ditch. In this Book are passages that poured up out of
the souls of men in hours of insight and that have been
remembered all these centuries because deep calleth unto
deep still at the noise of their waterfalls. If you cannot
understand all the Bible, make something worth while out
of that much of it you can understand, but do not leave
the greatest religious literature of mankind a mere prob-
lem.
This reduction of religion to a problem has become so
familiar that some people to-day are using it as a defense
mechanism. They hide behind it. They push their prob-
lems to the front, like old savages that have been known
to fight behind their women and children. Faced by the
rich opportunities or the urgent duties of the Christian
life, they erect an interrogation point and hide behind it.
They have discovered that Christianity is easier to discuss
[ 204 ]
HAKRY EMEKSON FOSDICK
than to live, and they are dodging the living of it behind
the discussion of it. How much of that there is to-day !
I know well that I am dealing honestly with some one's
conscience here when I say. Get out from behind that in-
terrogation point. That is no place for a man to hide.
Whatever problems there may be, there is positive and
practical Christian living that you could undertake if you
really wanted to.
As for some of you and there are multitudes of you
in the world to-day whose religion quite honestly has
gotten over into the discussion-group class, remember
that the deepest and loveliest experiences of life are never
reached by discussion only. Discuss love; read all the
books about it ; inform yourself about every modern theory
concerning it; hold your campus sessions on it; debate
its history, physiology, psychology, codes, and laws ; but,
however far you push your discussions of love, you will
not reach love by that alone. Love is an adventure of the
whole personality. One comes to understand it, not so
much by discussing it as by giving oneself to it.
So is religion. Real religion, like real love, lies not
at the end of a discussion, but at the end of the souFs
adventure.
You are right how many problems there are in re-
ligion! How much we wish we did have answers to some
of our questions ! Here in this church we would like to
help you find them. We will set up all the discussion
groups we can, for this church stands for an opportunity
for the free discussion of religion. But if some of us are
[205]
KEMGIOUS FAITH: PBIYILEGE on PBOBUEM?
going to get to the heart of the matter, we must go
deeper. We will have to take our souls in hand and say,
my sou! 5 religion is like nature or music or the family,
full of problems but with something deeper there life,
life that is life indeed, our strength and song!
[ 206]
XIV
Running Away from Life
ALBERT WENTWORTH PALMER
PRESIDENT, CHICAGO THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY
CHICAGO, ILL.
ALBERT WENTWORTH PALMER was
born in 1879 at Kansas City, Mo. He gradu-
ated from the University of California with the
B.L. degree. He received the B.D. degree
from Yale University and the Doctor of Divin-
*ty from the Pacific School of Religion.
He was ordained in the Congregational min-
'stry. He was pastor of Plymouth Church,
Oakland, Calif.; of the Central Union Church,
Honolulu; and of First Church, Oak Park, 111.
He is now president of the Chicago Theolog-
ical Seminary.
During the war he was with the Army Y. M.
C.A.
He is one of the regular Bible teachers at the
Chicago Evening Club in Orchestra Hall. He
is a regular preacher at the colleges and uni-
versities.
He is the author of The Drift Toward Reli-
gion, The New Christian Epic, and Whither
Christianity?
XIV
RUNNING AWAY FROM LIFE
ALBERT W. PAX.MES
Jonah rose up to flee unto Tarshish from the
presence of the Lord* JONAH 1:3.
If I take the t&ings of the morning and dwell
in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there
shall thy hand lead me and thy right hand shall
hold me. PSALM 139: 9.
EVES, since the days of Jonah men have tried to run away
from life, and have found that it can't be done. And ever
since the days of the Psalmist spiritually-minded men
have learned that life, wherever lived, is not apart from
the care and help of God. The prodigal son does not
always come home to find the Father's house. Some-
times, even in the far country, he lifts up his eyes from
feeding the swine and finds his Father there.
The most extreme and dramatic way of running away
from life is by committing suicide. Far be it from me,
as a minister who has shared the intimate sorrows of many
families, to speak harshly of those who have chosen this
door of exit from a life of trouble. Suicide, like divorce,
needs to be understood rather than denounced. It is a
tragic revelation of a troubled and discordant mind even
as divorce is of an unloving home. Back of both these
tragedies lie deeper problems how to create a joyous
home and how to insure a unified and harmonious soul.
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A*WAY MtOM LIFE
Sometimes suicide comes because of physical breakdown
a wholesome outdoor life might have forestalled it. Some-
times, of course, it comes from entire mental irresponsi-
bility. Again it may be due to the overwhelming of
balanced judgment by a sudden mental crisis which the
victim attempted to bear alone when a few words of
counsel from a friend would have shown a way out. No
wonder a Salvation Army barracks in a desperate slum
once put up this notice : "Before committing suicide please
consult the adjutant!" If people whose mental burdens
seem overwhelming would just consult somebody the
minister or the policeman or even the elevator boy they
would find that no situation is so bad but that there is
some honorable way out, and strength from God to take
that way.
Two California poets have presented this problem from
contrasting points of view. George Sterling, who died by
his own hand recently, left behind a poem entitled "My
Swan Song,' 5
"Has man the right
To die and disappear.
When he has lost the fight?
To sever without fear
The irksome bonds of life,
When he is tired of strife?
May he not seek, if it seems best,
Eelief from grief? May he not rest
From labors vain, from hopeless task?
I do not know; I merely ask.
Or must he carry on
The struggle, till it's done?
Will he be damned, if he,
World-weary, tired, and ill,
[210]
ALBERT WEN TWOUTH PALMEB
Deprived of strength and will a
Decides he must be free?
Is punishment awaiting those.
Who quit, before the whistle blows.
Who leave behind unfinished tasks?
I do not know; I merely ask-' 5
But years ago Edwin Markham had anticipated and
answered this question by these lines :
"Toil-worn and trusting Zeno's mad belief,
A soul went wailing from this world of grief,
A wild hope led the way
Then, suddenly, dismay !
Lo I the old load was there 1
The duty, the despair !
Nothing had changed still only one escape
From its old self into the angel shape.* 1 x
To rush from this life into another one only postpones
the issues, and it is always hardest on those left behind.
The nobler philosophy is that which says :
"Be strong! We are not here to drift.
We have hard work to do and loads to lift;
Shun not the struggle, face it, 'tis God's gift
Be strong!"
The newspapers seem to indicate a recent epidemic
of suicides. I say "seems," for one learns to distrust
newspapers as accurate gauges of reality. They play up
what they are interested in or what they arbitrarily con-
sider news, so that one can never be sure just how much
their report of current life has been colored by conscious
or unconscious propaganda. Possibly a scientific study
would reveal no sudden change in the number that for
various reasons take their own lives.
1 Copyright by Edwin Markham. Used by permission.
[211]
RUNNING AWAY EEOM LIFE
And yet it must be admitted that there is much in the
current philosophy of life to promote rather than prevent
a policy of self-destruction. The college student to-day,
for example, meets much that is unsettling. Some of his
teachers seem to have no very clear-cut standards of right
and wrong, beyond a feeling that some actions are not
"nice" or "pretty." A mechanistic interpretation of the
universe seems to leave out the spiritual values of life as a
mere unimportant by-product to be either ignored or
apologized for. Mechanistic psychology knows no soul
and is hardly conscious of consciousness, let alone of any
hope of immortality. There are no bugle calls to heroic
action in the dawn of life sounded by this materialistic
subpersonal philosophy. It would not be surprising if
youth cried out to such a lif e when
"Fear and faith alike are flown ;
Lonely I come, and I depart alone
And know it not where nor tuato whom I go ;
But that thou cans't not follow me I know."
The New Haven Journal-Courier has wisely said :
Nineteen is a stressful age for a fine-lined boy. Part
boy, part man, he trails the glories of the mystic past.
A boy sees visions, as even old men remember. His
clouds are very pink, but they may be very black.
Apparently keen for his new status, he yet lets go his
irresponsible innocence sorrowfully, and, as compensa-
tion for their loss, hugs the fragments of his dreams.
On his soul pound the beatings of varied emotions.
Within him are stirrings for a career, worthy, splendid,
as in the hero books he so lately read in which sacrifice
was play and joy, provided only the race be run in the
[212]
ALBERT WENTWOBTH PALMER
open, within sight of the beauty and free gracious
liberty echoed from mountain to sea, transfiguring the
faces of friends and written in heroism and truth and
fidelity!
How to accord all this with the sordid^ the ugly, the
cynical^ the impure, the blazoning of show for substance^
in the world their elders have set up for them, is the
problem of these desperate boys whose tragedies shock
parents, teachers, citizens. The vision is obscured for a
time, though the world is so unutterably beautiful; kind-
ness and love are so infinite, with men and women on
every side eager to join in making the world a paradise.
The need is for faith, for some anchorage of affection
until the furious tides of emotion recede, and the de-
pressing sense of contrast lessens, and these boy-men
look out on God's world in their right mind once more,
serene and unafraid.
It is significant that one of our youngest poets, Edna
St. Vincent Millay, has faced this problem and suggested
how such a troubled soul, coining to the Father's house
through suicide's dark rusty door, came at last to God
and said:
"Father, I beg of thee a little task
To dignify my days. . . .
'Child,' my father's voice replied,
*AU things thy fancy hath desired of me
Thou hast received. I have prepared for thee
Within my house a spacious chamber, where
Are delicate things to handle and to wear,
And all these things are thine. Dost thou love song?
My minstrels shall attend thee all day long.
Or sigh for flowers? My fairest gardens stand
Open as fields to thee on every hand,
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RUNNING AWAY FEOM LIFE
And all thy days this word shall told the same;
No pleasure shalt thou lack that thou shalt name.
But as for tasks* he smiled^ and shook his head.
Thou hadst thy task, and laidst it by/ he said." *
Back of such a poem lies the faith that there is some-
thing more to life than mechanistic impersonal behavior
that life is a task with value and with, meaning.
If youth fails to gather such an interpretation of life
and feels wearied and disgusted to be merely a cog in a
great world machine, let the Church share with the col-
lege its due part of the blame. For while the classroom
has seemed to teach a mere barren mechanlcalism, the
Church has too often made its message deal with issues
long outgrown and phrased in terms meaningless or pow-
erless to modern youth. A conception of God and a phi-
losophy of life which can use and translate or, when
necessary, effectively challenge the scientific thought-
forms of our age is what the age demands. A religion
which accepts science as far as it goes and then goes on
to insist upon the supreme importance of the further
realities of moral idealism, beauty, love, and personal
devotion, is what youth needs. It is for the Church to
set up banners in the dawn, to caU attention to the spir-
itual values in life, what Canon Streeter calls the quality
of life after science has reported all it can on things,
which, after all, have to do only with quantity. Youth
will not run away from a life filled with spiritual mean-
*From Renascence and Other Poems^ published by Harper and
Brothers. Copyright, 1917, by Edna St. Vincent Millay.
[214]
ALBERT WENTWOETH PALMEB
ing, life which contains real tasks not to be lightly laid
aside.
But there are other ways of running away from life.
In this cushioned and upholstered age we try to run away
from physical hardship and exertion. So many things are
done for us that it seems quite delightful until we find
that we are losing our teeth and our health for lack of
hard work! And so we go back to our gymnasiums and
masseurs and, more pleasantly, to long outdoor camping
expositions because, after all, we cannot run away from
life in its elemental demand of facing hardship and physi-
cal exertion.
Or we run away from family responsibility. In these
days of carefully balanced budgets and birth control, of
alluring shop windows and definite salaries, it costs so
much in self-denial to share with children what might go
into Oriental rugs and pictures and automobiles and trips
to Europe. But in the end, when children grow up in the
home and open windows on larger landscapes, when they
bring home the living, growing world in which they move,
and so enrich life in ways intensely real and personal,
there comes to each such enlarged family circle a distinct
reward for not having evaded life. It wasn't easy to be
tied to a baby once, or to several babies, but it is an en-
riching experience when those babies, grown and educated,
bring back into the homes in turn their babies, their ex-
periences, their vivid reports on the great pageant of
living.
Political and social responsibilities are similarly unes-
capable. You are too busy to run for office? You really
[215]
BUNKING AWAY FROM LIFE
must get off the grand jury? You can't be expected to
take part in politics, not even in your own precinct club?
You are not even to be depended on to vote? Well and
good. But listen! When disease runs riot in the slum
district because of the corrupt inefficiency which has
flourished in some Board of Health because of your in-
difference, and that disease spreads to your pleasant sub-
urb what then? Here is a criminal bred by the corrupt
politics and unspeakable jail and criminal court condi-
tions which you did nothing to prevent when that crimi-
nal meets you in some dark shadow and shoots you down
or someone dear to you, perhaps the question will arise
whether we can ever successfully run away from our civic
responsibilities.
People all about us are trying to ignore their moral
responsibilities and pass them by. "We won't count this
one/' they say with Rip Van Winkle to each daring sin.
But just when they think they are "beyond good and
evil 5 ' the tether of the moral law brings them up with a
sharp jerk.
"I said *Good-by' to my conscience,
*Good-by, forever and aye*;
And conscience forthwith departed
And returned not from that day.
I said 'Return' to my conscience,
*For I long to see thy face';
But conscience replied, 'I cannot
Remorse sits in my place !' "
So, if there were time, I might point out it is with re-
ligion also. It seems easy to run away from religion. We
[216]
ALBERT WENTTWOETH PALMER
are too busy, too practical to bother. It seems rather
troublesome with its fussy details of church attendance,
Bible reading, prayer, grace before meat. Sabbath observ-
ance, Sunday schools, and all the rest. Why not chuck it
overboard and get on very well without it? And then,
just as we seem to have banished it successfully, a sunset
making the western sky all glorious, or the birth of a child
and a bit of helpless humanity in our arms, or a death and
the strange peace on a countenance well loved and forever
still, breaks in upon our complacency and tells us that
religion can never be evaded.
Let me call your attention to the greatness of Jesus
in that he never ran away from life ! He heard the sum-
mons of John the Baptist and answered it by his self-
dedication at the Jordan "Suffer it to be so now: for
thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. 59 It is the
first utterance of his active ministry, and what a bugle
call to face life through ! And so he goes on. In the wil-
derness, at the well curb in Samaria, with the hungry
multitude, in the streets of Jericho, on the steep relentless
road up to Jerusalem, amid the money changers, before
Pilate, on Calvary's hill he evaded nothing he never ran
away from life. Matthew Arnold said of Sophocles : "He
saw life steadily and saw it whole. 55 But of Jesus may be
written also: "He faced all life unfalteringly and saw it
through."
[217]
XV
Keeping Life Fresh
RALPH WASHINGTON SOCKMAN
MINISTER, CHRIST METHODIST CHURCH
NEW YORK CITY
RALPH WASHINGTON SOCKMAN was
born in 1889 at Mount Vernon ; OMo. He
graduated from Ohio Wesleyan with the degree
of B.A. He received the M.A. degree from
Columbia University and is a graduate of Un-
ion Theological Seminary. He received the
degree of Doctor of Philosophy from Columbia
University. The honorary degrees of Doctor of
Divinity and Doctor of Laws have been con-
ferred upon him.
He was ordained in the Methodist ministry
and has had only one church^ the Madison Ave-
nue Methodist Episcopal Church. The name of
this church has been changed to Christ Church,
since the erection of a handsome new building
at the cost of millions of dollars.
During the war he was with the Army
Y. M. C. A.
He is a regular preacher at various colleges
and universities. He broadcasts for the Na-
tional Sunday Forum during the summer
months.
He is the author of The Suburbs of Chris-
tianity, Men of the Mysteries, and Morals of
To-Morrow.
XV
KEEPING LIFE FRESH
BAUPH W. SOCKMAK
THJE twenty-third Psalm and the tenth chapter of John
are antlphonal. Out of the valley of the shadow of death
the Psalmist called, "The Lord is my shepherd, 55 and back
from the sunny hillside of the Gospel comes the answer of
Jesus, "I am the good shepherd." In the ninth verse of
this tenth chapter our Master makes a significant state-
ment : "I am the door ; by me if any man enter in, he shall
be saved, and shall go in and go out, and shall find pas-
ture."
To get the force of this figure one must think of the
scene Christ frequently beheld. He saw sheep at night-
faE huddled together waiting for the door to open into
the sheepfold. He saw the same sheep in the morning
chafing and eager to go out to the openness of the pasture.
The alternation of their need struck Jesus as typical of
men. Just as the growth of the sheep requires their going
in and going out of the sheepfold, so the growth of the
human spirit demands a going in and going out of the
divine sheepfold through the Christ door. "He shall go
in and go out."
The Master himself illustrates the meaning of his coun-
sel, although he does not mention it in connection with this
passage. Jesus tells of a young man who went out from
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KEEPING LIFE FRESH
his father's house in the impetuosity of his youth. He
wanted to see life. He would roam the "great white ways"
of the world. The shelter of his father's home seemed
like a barrier shutting him from the enjoyments of life.
He called for his share of the estate and went into a far
country. Throwing off his old family restraints, he rev-
eled for a time in his new found freedom. Soon his patri-
mony was exhausted. His liberty was leveled down into
the bondage of sin. Lifting up his "lean and hungry look 35
from the husks which lay scattered about his bestial ex-
istence, he beheld with clarity of vision his father's house
with its peace and plenty. He said, "I will arise and go to
my father." He arose. And as we look with Christ we
see the prodigal son picking his way across the barren
stretches of the far country, his eyes downcast, in sheep-
ish dejection and humiliation. The disillusioned and ex-
posed son needs a door in.
But there was another son in that paternal home an.
elder brother. He had never scampered off in riotous self-
indulgence. He had never abandoned his father. He had
been a dutiful son, but his relation to his father and his
outlook on life were governed by a sense of duty rather
than by a glad spontaneity. Therefore, he did not re-
joice with his father at the return of his brother, but
moped at the thought that he himself had been cheated
because all his years of service had apparently earned for
him no greater reward than his brother's. The elder son
was a penned-up, cramped, calculating creature with his
eye on the restrictions and the rewards of life. What he
needed was a door out. Do not misunderstand me. I am
[222]
EALPH WASHrNTGTO^T SOCKMASF
not joining that chorus of interpretation which sings the
praises of the prodigal son at the expense of his pains-
taking brother. It is a mistaken but modern popular idea
that the prodigal view of the far country is necessary to
the enjoyment of life. What the elder son needed was a
door out, not to the sin of the far country, but a door out
of the little sheepfold of cautious security and cloistered
sympathy to the pasture land of the free-born sons of
God, where men feed their minds on fresh ideas, lift up
their eyes unto larger visions, and grow into bigness of
soul.
It is a blessed reality that when the prodigal returns
shorn and shattered, Christ is the door that can let Mm
into the comfort of the divine household. It is also a
blessed thing that for short-sighted, narrow-minded, smaU-
souled elder brothers, Christ has often been the door out
to world-views and large living. But neither the prodigal
nor the elder brother is an ideal figure. The ideal child
of God is the one that habituates himself to the regular
and proper use of the Christ-door s to the going in and out.
When we translate this text into the prose concrete-
ness of everyday life, what does it involve?
First we learn the principle of alternation between the
going m to the shelter of the Christian faith and out to
the exposure of it.
The healthy Christian must know the shelter of his
religion. Consider a phase or two of that shelter. It is
a protection against the anxieties of Hfe. When we say
that, we must not make the mistake very common in cer-
tain religious circles to-day. The late Joseph Pulitzer in
[
KEEPING LIFE FRESH
his closing years had a mania for silence and built for
himself in the heart of New York "a tower of silence,"
where with three thicknesses of walls and of doors he
sought to shut out every sound. So some modern religious
cults make of their faith a sort of "tower of silence" in
which they hear no cries of suffering, no calls for help.
We must not copy that error. We must keep our ears
open to the cry of need from every corner of the earth.
As a Christian I must have a front door opening on the
world; but as that great servant of humanity, Walter
Rauschenbusch, could say, so must I be able to say:
"In the castle of my soul
Is a little pastern gate,
"Whereat, when I enter 9
I am in the presence of God."
That little "postern gate" is a door in to a very real
shelter from anxiety, but also from our sins. Here again
we must not repeat a very vulgar mistake. The doctrine
of divine forgiveness has been misinterpreted by many to
mean that they can run ruthlessly over the rights of others
and then dash back into the castled safety of a forgiving
God, whither the punishment of their sins cannot pursue
them. God's pardon has been emphasized as a sort of
portcullis to be dropped in the face of a chasing devil.
It is not from the consequences of our sins that we should
stress the protection but from the sins themselves. And
this is what the Christ door offers. Ask my friend who a
few years ago was ordered out of the city of Minneapolis
as a derelict and who to-day is the head of our Hadley
Rescue Hall on the Bowery. That manly Irishman will
[224]
EALPH WASHINGTON SOCKMAIST
not be ashamed to tell you that Christ has been a shelter
from harassing temptation and assaulting appetite.
Through the Christ-door we can go in to a place of
respite from the buffeting and exposure of our complex
gusty world. The hardiest mariner at times longs for
the harbor. The strongest of us has a normal desire for
shelter. The fact that such hymns as "Rock of Ages 55
and "Jesus, Lover of My Soul" have proven among the
most popular hymns of the English-speaking world is
evidence of this natural longing for a door in to the divine
shelter.
But the current religious interest cannot healthily flow
always inward. "He shall go in and go out." The wise
shepherd knows that if sheep are to develop form and
muscle, they must go out and find pasture. Hence Christ
sends his wards out.
He would have them go further in life's ventures than
does the non-Christian. Who is it that starts the great
social crusades for the abolishing of such sins as in-
temperance and war? Who is it that goes out beyond the
paved roads of conventional morality to wrestle with the
problems at which the "man on the street" only winks?
Whence come the reforms, the health movements, the dar-
ing social experiments of "turning the other cheek" and
"going the second mile"? The answer should be, the flock
of Christ. Not always, to be sure, has the Church as an
organization gone out to the great risks of social pro-
gressive experiments. Not infrequently the leadership in
social crises is taken by courageous souls outside the
Church. But it is from those influenced by the Church
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KEEPING LIFE FRESH
that the general support of public betterment has largely
come.
Is the Christian Church sneered at as a shelter for
souls? A shelter, yes, but the kind of one that a stockade
is on the frontiers of civilization into which the pioneers
of the cross come to restore their tired spirits and to re-
load the outposts of the Kingdom of God. God a refuge?
Yes. "But God is our refuge and strength" And it is
this alternation between God, the refuge, and God the
strength, between religion, the shelter, and religion, the
"desperate sortie," between "going into the silence" and
going out into action it is this which keeps spiritual life
healthy and balanced.
Secondly, the Christian must alternate between "going
In" to the restraints of his religion and "going out" to the
liberties of it. One of our great leaders of youth says
that he is often asked by parents as to the safety of cer-
tain colleges for their sons. The question, he says, calls
to his mind an orphan boy who was reared by an uncle.
When the time arrived for the lad to go to college, the
uncle laid his hands on his shoulders and said, "David, do
what you have a mind to do." The guardian had given so
much painstaking care to the boy's development that he
knew the youth in making up his mind would take into
account the large and wise considerations and be guided
by the right principles. For such a boy almost any col-
lege is safe.
As I rub my mind over this tenth chapter of John, I
seem to feel that Jesus is such a guardian. He says, "I
came that they may have life and have it abundantly."
[ 226]
EALPH WASHINGTON SOCKMAIST
He came to show men the green pastures of the soul. He
wants to give men the latchkey o liberty that they may
"go out" under their own free will. But he would give
the liberty to men only after they have learned discipline
through "going in" to the restraints of life.
That freedom follows discipline is a true principle in
any sphere. The free and smooth government of a home
cannot begin in unrestrained license. The nursery is
hardly the place to put in practice the Wilsonian doctrine
of pure democracy whereby the rights of small bodies to
govern themselves shall be preserved inviolate. Neither
should family constitutions be too easily amended by the
youngest constituents. If we wish freedom in the home,
there must be a preliminary discipline. If I wish the free-
dom of the artist whereby my hands can dance with au-
tomatic grace over the keyboard while my mind dreams
the themes of the composer, I must first shut myself in to
the restrictions of the finger-exercise periods. If I wish
that liberty of the established business man which will
enable me to travel at will in my maturity, I must "go in 5 *
to rigorous application in my earlier years.
So Christ, in this nursery and art and business which is
called life, says his follower shall "go in 53 to the discipline
before he shall "go out" to the freedom. And the Master
lays down a strict regimen for us. "Narrow is the gate
and straitened the way that leadeth unto life." When we
go in to his training quarters we have to discipline our
eyes, our thoughts, our emotions. But when we have so
schooled ourselves, we can go out into the midst of this
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KEEPING IJEE FRESH
tempting world with "the glorious liberty of the children
of God."
Ours is an undisciplined age. Finding ourselves in a
chaos of self-expression bordering on libertinism, many are
calling for censorship of press and stage and public morals
generally. Censorship is at best only an expedient* and
one which has often been abused. Perhaps we need it tem-
porarily, but we should be far more concerned in restoring
the discipline given by the Christian Church and Christian
home. Censors cannot do what parents leave undone ; leg-
islatures cannot correct the wildness which the Churches
fail to tame.
A third aspect of this alternation needs to be empha-
sized. The Christian shall "go in" to the close-up views
of the sheepfold and shall "go out 55 to the long vistas of the
pasture. The intimate and personal aspects of religion
must alternate with the general and social.
The late Dr. John Henry Jowett in his characteristical-
ly beautiful fashion likened the mind of Paul to the move-
ment of the skylark. Paul soared to heights of compre-
hensive vision when he beheld all Europe as his parish. As
an "ethereal minstrel pilgrim of the sky/' he "songfully
surveyed the redemption of the world.' 5 But the Apos-
tle's mind kept returning to its nest upon the ground. He
did not lose himself in the world-wide generalizations. The
skylark comes down to warm its body on the bosom of the
earth. So Paul nested close to his Lord. Thus he kept his
experiences warmly personal. "He loved me and gave
himself for me" "He called me" These are the glad
crooning songs of the nest.
[ 228]
EALPH WASHINGTON SOCKMAN
Every healthy-minded Christian must have, as Paul,
such a skylark motion in his religion. Some Churchmen
keep too close to the nest. Their religion is provincially
intimate, morbidly individualistic. They need to swing
out to catch world-views. On the other hand many in
modern times need to come in from a merely general public
interest in religion to a close-up personal intimacy with
the living Christ. Religion to-day is a public question as
never before. It figures in our conversations. All intelli-
gent people express some interest in religious questions,
for they are topics of the times. It is one thing, however,
to read what some prominent preacher says about the
birth of Christ on the front page of a newspaper and quite
another thing to hear the living Christ knocking at the
front door of your heart. We shall never redeem men by
vague general interest in religion. We come to vital grips
with our religious beliefs only when we "go in" with them
to the intimacy of the personal and the possessive.
Our imaginations are captured by the thought of going
out with Christ's gospel and ideals to transform the large
areas of social living.
"Christ for the world we sing,
The world to Christ we bring."
But we must remind ourselves whence came the initial im-
pulse of this outgoing crusade. We must recall the upper
room in which the risen Christ made himself so vividly
present that even the skeptical Thomas, in a burst of il-
lumined conviction, exclaimed, "My Lord and my God."
As it was begun, so will the great social redemptive work
[229]
KEEPING LIFE FRESH
be sustained. The Christian must follow Christ in to the
intimacies of the "My' 5 if he is to follow him out to his
public social programs.
"I am the door ; by me if any man enter in, he shall be
saved, and "lie shall go in and go out. 39
[ 230]
XH
A Good Word for Jacob
FRANCIS JOHN McCONNELL
BISHOP, METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHUECH
NEW YORK AEEA
FRANCIS JOHN McCONNELL was born
in 1871 at Trinway, Ohio. He graduated from
Ohio Wesleyan College with the A.B. degree.
He received the S.T.B. degree and the Ph.D.
degree from Boston University. The honorary
degrees of Doctor of Divinity and Doctor of
Laws have keen conferred upon him,
He was ordained in the Methodist ministry.
He has been pastor at Chelmsford, Mass., Har-
vard Street, Cambridge, and Brooklyn, N. Y.
He was president of De Pauw University.
He was made Bishop in 1912. He is now
president of the Federal Council of Churches
of Christ in America.
He is a great prophet of the Gospel of Jesus.
He is the author of many books, the best
known of which are The Diviner Immanence,
The Increase of Faith, Personal Christianity,
Is God Limited, and The Christlike God.
XVI
A GOOD WORD FOR JACOB
FRANCIS J. McCONNELL
IT seems always in order to a certain type of cynic to
disparage the Scriptures, and especially the Old Testa-
ment, because of the moral shortcomings of some of the
heroes. Jacob in particular is often treated indeed has
been quite recently treated as if his experience at Bethel
where in a dream he saw the angels descending and as-
cending was merely the "rationalization" of a bargain-
er's instinct; and as if his experience at the brookside
where he wrestled with the angel was merely the attempt
to get a favor for himself.
There is, however, perennial significance in Jacob's
greater religious experiences. At first glance we should
not be likely to pick Jacob out for special favors from
the Lord. Much of what is recorded of him is shabby
and mean, judged by our standards. Even though we
remind ourselves that ancient Israel did not have our
standards, we cannot always justify Jacob. Certainly
Isaac and Esau saw nothing noble in Jacob's conduct, no
matter how much we may say about the approval of the
Jews for shrewd bargaining.
How then can we understand the stress placed by the
writer of Genesis on the dream of Jacob at Bethel as a
revelation from the Lord? It seems clear that, psycho-
[233]
A GOOD WOBD FOB, JACOB
logically, there were two men in Jacob the crafty schem-
er and the potential religious leader, the man of the world
and the man of God, The problem was to make the man
of the world into the man of God. In doing this the divine
procedure would have to start from the man of the world,
in whatever condition he might happen to be. A dis-
tinguished religious teacher has recently said that Jesus
always refused to deal with men as he found them. What
this means is probably that Jesus refused to acquiesce in
the conditions of men as he found them, but he always
started with them where he found them. There was no
other way.
It would almost seem that there was something arbitrary
in the divine favor shown Jacob as if, to use the old
phrase, the Lord had elected him without regard to his
deserts. In fact, there always seems to be something ar-
bitrary in the divine choice of men to be leaders. As the
characters of such men unfold it appears that there have
been spiritual possibilities not first discernible to human
insight. In case a man is a worthy leader, this conscious-
ness of a special call is likely to make him humble in spirit
rather than exalted. Knowing how little he deserves on
his own account, he is not easily puffed up at the realiza-
tion that he is called to a special task.
The men called of God in Old Testament times do not
seem to have thought of their calls as promises of magic
help. This is worthy of note because Oriental tales of
help to men by supernatural beings are likely to bring in
supernatural aid. That such help was promised and
given is part of the unmistakable declaration of the Old
[234.]
FEA1STCIS JOHN M^
Testament, but the atmosphere in such declarations is not
that of the Arabian Nights, for example. There are no
magic carpets in Genesis. Jacob is conscious that the
Lord has been with him, and believes that the Lord will
continue to be with him. He promises to give a tenth of
all that he gets to the Lord ; but he has to earn what he
gets, including the tenth which he gives. The call of the
Lord to the men of old was like a summons from the peak
of a mountain to come up to the summit. There was no
way to get up except by climbing, but they had divine
assurance that they would reach the top.
A supercilious critic finds the story of Jacob at Bethel
a favorite point of attack on the claim of divine authority
for the Old Testament. He thinks of the scene as reveal-
ing Jacob as a petty bargainer, and protests that the idea
of God as a party to an agreement with such a character
is degrading to the very conception of God.
There is no reason for making Jacob out as worse than
he was. Rightly understood there is precious little in the
story of Bethel to warrant criticism, once we take account
of Jacob's characteristic alertness and quickness in any-
thing having to do with Ms own interests. The Jewish
reader found in the narrative a divine sanction for the
tithe. We do not have to hold to the Jewish tithe as
binding on ourselves to see its importance in the history
of religion. It was an attempt to bring order and reason
and seriousness into the Jewish service of the Lord. There
are different kinds of rationalism in the approach to re-
ligion. The kind we hear most about tries to explain
everything by the laws of human reason a narrow and
[ 235]
A GOOD WOBD FOB JACOB
limited reason at best reducing all the religious light to
a dry, desert bareness which in the end is more of a strain
on the eyes of the soul than the twilights and shades it is
Intended to replace. There is another rationalism which
seeks to bring system and regularity and habit into the
service of the Lord. The Jewish tithe did this with a suc-
cess unparalleled.
It is easy to sneer at Jacob's suggesting a bargain in-
volving a tenth, especially if we wish religion to remain in
dreamland; but that overlooks the significance of the
tenth as a manifestation of the genuine seriousness with
which the people of Israel took religion. Giving a tenth
implies a system a religion run on a bookkeeping basis,
of course ; and to many poetic and some stingy souls this
will give offense. As Jacob puts the proposition, it is
rather crass ; but the proposition was sound, at least as a
start. It meant that religion of the type from which
Christianity came was to take account of the divine in all
the details of the workaday life. Such a resolution is not
to be sneered at.
Another point of attack in the story is the agreement
between the Lord and Jacob. We must recall the story
of the Lord's agreement with Abram: that one of the
essential factors in any religious practice worth following
is the belief in a dependable God. Jacob's surprise at
Bethel was only that God had visited him. In his speech
with the Lord he assumed that the Lord was a being whose
word could be trusted. Early religions, and many cur-
rent ones for that matter, did not, and do not, make this
assumption.
[236]
FBANCIS JOHX M^COISFNELL
It would be Interesting to see how far this Jewish
thought of God, as to be depended upon, helped the human
race to order and steadiness in thinking. Max Weber, the
noted German economist, once said that the Jews came
early to commercial success because they so soon got rid of
reliance on irrational magic and "signs. 55 It may even be
possible that the Jewish idea of God as a God of law
helped mankind finally toward the notion of scientific law.
At least a belief in a Lord who would be bound by his own
covenants would be a better preparation for the accept-
ance of such law than the notions of other ancient peo-
ples about their gods. Moreover, it was not far removed
from the belief in a moral God. Jacob at Bethel was not
much of a moralist, but he made a good start by entering
into a binding agreement with the Lord.
The glory of Jacob was that God would get a chance
at him. Faulty though he was, he had a window open to
the skies. His daytime activities were abundant in guile,
but he could dream of God. Esau could probably have
chased wild game all day and then have slept soundly at
night. There was little chance of getting at him, even in
a dream. A man who lost his head at the first whiff of
Jacob's stew had not much head to lose. Jacob was un-
mistakably of the earth, earthy ; but he could be reached
by the heavenly. He represents in himself much of the
after-career of his people a people prone to evil yet
always haunted by dreams of God, with enough souls
obedient to those dreams to get the truth of God on high
forever.
[237]
A GOOD WORD FOE, JACOB
II
The second scene that of wrestling at the brookside
takes its start toward abiding significance out of the fact
that Jacob was determined not to get into a conflict with
his enemy Esau. A good many sharp things might be
said about Jacob's unwillingness to fight. He was not too
proud to fight, but he knew how to appeal to a foe with
presents. He knew also how to dispose of his followers
and of his herds so as to minimize the danger of attack,
By comparison with many a warlike hero of the Old Testa-
ment, he can hardly escape being called contemptible. All
of which is superficial. Jacob was acting under a heavy
responsibility. He had been told of his large place in the
plan of God. There was nothing in any Old Testament
promise to warrant the belief that the promise would
fulfill itself. Jacob may have been the biggest coward in
the land, but he nevertheless acted wisely in seeking to
avoid a fight with Esau. The consequences would have
been too costly. He could not afford to win or lose.
To-day nations cannot afford to win victories in war.
There is, of course, no justification for trying to fit an
Old Testament lesson in detail to a present-day situa-
tion, but even in that far-away time Jacob saw that, what-
ever the outcome of a battle, it would be too costly. The
accumulations of the years had been gained with too des-
perate a struggle to be risked, especially when they in-
cluded not merely material things but wives and children
the children who were to be the channels of the fulfillment
of the mighty promise made to Jacob. We of to-day know
something of the price of a war which was at the hour of
[238]
FEANCIS JOHN M'CONHEIX
its termination pronounced wholly successful. We see
now that the presumably intelligent statesmen who talked
proudly of the rewards of victory spoke as so many im-
beciles. There have been no rewards except disaster and
woe.
In the night scene by the brook Jacob showed courage
of a high order. Probably every man in Jacob's land be-
lieved that special objects of nature, like running streams,
had their protecting divinities, who might prove deadly
adversaries. No such belief deterred Jacob from seizing
what appeared to him an emissary from God, although he
would have been justified in prostrating himself in abject
fear. All the details of the narrative suggest that Jacob's
thought of his struggle took on the form of a wrestle
with a divinity. He knew that he dared not risk a battle
with Esau, and that he dared not shrink from an en-
counter with the midnight messenger.
The idea of God expands with the passage of the cen-
turies. The narrative in Genesis comes down to us from
an era when men were just beginning to think of God in
moral terms. The idea that he could be depended on to
keep his word was a long step ahead in thinking. Jacob
felt that a promise from a divine source would be of sur-
passing help to him in the work to which he had been
called, and he was anxious for help from any quarter.
The story of the scene would be worth little to us if it did
not take in a profoundly inner meaning. Jacob was feel-
ing an agony of conscience that had to be set at peace.
The Church throughout the ages has not been far wrong
A GOOD WOUD FOE JACOB
in thinking of this incident as a type of inner struggle to
get right with God.
It would not be fair to say that Jacob's conscience be-
gan to work only after he realized the danger of meeting
Esau. Sometimes it is the immediacy of a peril which
first brings home to an evildoer his wrong against the
moral law. We have all known transgressors who ap-
parently have not seen that they have been doing any-
thing immoral until faced with exposure and punishment,
but in such cases we should make a sad mistake to pro-
nounce the remorse not genuine.
We must note not only Jacob's courage in facing the
mysterious adversary at midnight, but his persistence as
well. It is easy to miss the moral worth of the incident.
We can say that there is nothing moral in just holding
on. I am not sure that the teaching of a much later time,
even that of Jesus himself, would warrant such a judg-
ment. Jesus valued persistence very highly, as we see from
the parable of the widow and the judge, and even from
more direct utterances. Indeed persistence is about the
most conclusive proof of genuineness and sincerity we
have. It would hardly be conceivable that a moral divinity
could grant moral favors to men unless men desired them
enough to pursue them with the last ounce of their power.
[240]
XVII
The Return of Satan
JOHN MILTON MOORE
MINISTER, FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH
BRIDGEPORT, CONK.
JOHN MILTON MOOEE was born in 1871
in Butler County, Pennsylvania. He graduated
from Grove City College with the A.B. degree
and graduated from Crozer Theological Semi-
nary. Grove City College bestowed upon him
the Doctor of Divinity degree.
He was ordained in the Baptist ministry. He
was pastor at Wilkinsburg, Pa., and of the
Centennial Church, Chicago, 111., and Marcy
Avenue, Brooklyn.
He was one of the General Secretaries for
the Federal Council of Churches of Christ in
America.
He is now the pastor of the First Baptist
Church, Bridgeport, Conn.
His sermons are always inspiring and grip-
ping. He has been much in demand as special
minister for Lenten Services.
He is the author of Things That Matter
Most.
XVII
THE RETURN OF SATAN
JOHN MILTON MOOB3S
The devil . . . departed from him for a sea-
son. LTJKE 4: IS.
THE popular demonstration to make Jesus King by the
Sea of Galilee and the discussion that followed in the
synagogue at Capernaum on the following day made one
thing clear beyond question. The Kingdom is not to come
quickly. Only in quite another sense of the words can it
now be said that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. This
experience must have been one of the major tragedies of
Jesus' life. The people have their hearts set on a political
leader and will have no other. Had Jesus been able and
willing to offer them bread in abundance and physical
comfort and political independence, they would have fol-
lowed him to the death. This he could not do.
He is compelled to change completely the whole method
of his ministry. From now on his hope rests with the
twelve disciples who are still standing by. But they are
bewildered and troubled and are far from promising stable
support. Their minds had also been caught in the cur-
rent of nationalistic and patriotic expectation. Whether
they will ever be able to see that vision of a good earth
which commands the mind and heart of Jesus, a Kingdom
that does not rest on force, that is builded upon char-
acter and service and fellowship, is more than a little
[243]
THE BETUBN OF SATAK
doubtful. But there is no other way than this long, slow,
patient, educational process to which Jesus now addresses
himself with the same utter devotion with which he had
given himself to his public ministry of healing and teach-
ing. From this time on they spent much of the time in
retirement. The records are so scant as to throw but
little light upon what they said and did during these quiet
weeks and months in Northern Galilee. But these were
the most fruitful months of his life.
They took one long trip together to the very northern-
most bounds of the country, the region of Csesarea Philip-
pi, with the twofold object of finding time for intimate
fellowship and at the same time getting out of the reach
of Herod. He has become suspicious of Jesus' popularity
and fears that his influence with the people may lead to
revolt, and for this cause is now seeking to put him to
death. It was a solemn hour, full of bitter disappoint-
ment and uncertainty, when Jesus turned with a weary
heart from Chorazin and Bethsaida and Capernaum, where
most of his mighty works had been done. They were to
have been veritable corner stones of the Kingdom of
Heaven on earth, these cities by the sea. He felt so sure
that he knew how to make joy and gladness abound in
their homes and on their streets and drive sorrow and
sighing far away. But he had been rejected. What they
desired he could not give them. What they desperately
needed they would not receive. The heathen cities of
Tyre and Sidon, in the direction of which they are now
journeying, would have given him a friendly and more
open-minded reception he verily believed. He had come
JOHN MILTON MOORE
unto his own, and they that were his own had not re-
ceived him.
And yet he is quite sure that salvation is of the Jews,
though it is for all people. This conviction was reflected
in his seemingly brusque response to the appeal of the
Syrophoenician woman. She had somehow heard of the
presence of this famous Jewish healer in their northern
country and comes in behalf of her demented daughter
pleading for the exercise on her diseased mind of his mar-
velous powers. "It is not fair," he said, "to take the
children's bread and throw it to dogs. 55 But he healed the
child just the same and rejoiced as he always did in dis-
covering that faith in Gentile hearts which Jewish men
and women so often refused him. Still he could not leave
his own country nor give up his own people. And so he
tarried there on the borders of the Gentile world finding
freedom among the glorious hills to talk long and earnestly
with his disciples, that he might show them the way of
the kingdom more perfectly. And there came one day the
reward of all his prayer and patience with these slow, dull,
misguided pupils.
As imagination pictures the little group sitting that
day not far from the roadside under the sheltering limbs
of a friendly tree that protects them from the heat of the
noonday sun, they look like a group of workingmen, as
in fact they were, in their dusty common clothes. It would
have required spiritual insight of a high order to have
imagined that anything that could have been said there
that day could create a world-wide revolution. At the
moment when we first catch sight of them they are all
[ 245 ]
THE RETURN OF SATAN"
apparently laboring under some violent even though sup-
pressed emotion. A painful silence has fallen on the
group. Jesus' face is uncommonly sad and thoughtful.
His eyes carry a far-away look as though he was not
conscious of the beauty of the hills and valleys that lay
before them, but saw something far away that stirred him
deeply. Peter's face is a study. If it were the face of a
child rather than that of a stern rugged fisherman, we
should say that he is pouting. But there is more to it
than that. There is in his frowning face the expression of
the sense of some just indignation as well as the pathos
of a hurt child. The others are nervous, restless, em-
barrassed. There has just been a painful colloquy
between Peter and Jesus. It had started simply and
pleasantly, had come up to a moment of quite dramatic
intensity, and then had taken an unpleasant turn in the
direction in which, to their bewilderment and distress,
Jesus' mind has been running recently. It had ended in a
quite violent verbal passage at arms that had not only
completely spoiled the day for them aU, but had left them
fairly gasping in painful astonishment.
Jesus had asked them an innocent question which they
had answered promptly and freely. "What are the people
saying about me? Who do they think that I am?"
"There are various opinions," they replied; "some say
that you are John the Baptist come back to life." "Herod
has been haunted by this fear." "Some say that you are
Elijah come down from heaven. Some are not clear as to
who you are, but are quite persuaded that you are one of
the prophets."
[246]
JOHN" MILTON" MOORE
Jesus was silent as though pondering their replies.
Suddenly his face lit up and with an eagerness in his voice
that fairly stabbed their souls he cried, "And you, what
do you think about it? Who do you say that I am?"
The question had come with a suddenness that was dra-
matic and almost terrifying. They wished that he had not
asked it. They had never been able to agree even among
themselves as they had so often during these recent months
discussed that very question when Jesus was not present.
They had wished to believe that he was the Messiah; O
how they had wished it! But they had never quite suc-
ceeded. Concerning the Messiah they had read :
Behold, there came with the clouds of heaven one like
unto a son of man, and lie came even to the ancient of
days, and they brought him near before him. And
there was given Mm dominion, and glory, and a king-
dom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should
serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which
shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall
not be destroyed.
"The Son of Man shall lift up the kings and the mighty from
their seats,
And shall loosen the reins of the strong.
And break the teeth of the sinners.**
"He shall destroy the pride of the sinner as a potter's vessel.
With a rod of iron he shall break in pieces all their substance,
He shall destroy the godless nations with the word of Ms
mouth;
At his rebuke nations shall flee before him."
Jesus was not like this at all. And yet they had almost
believed. His personality and power were unique and ir-
[247]
THE KETUBN OF SATAN
resistible. "What if this be he?" they had said to each
other again and again during these quiet days in the moun-
tains. They had thought a good deal and said a little
about what it would mean to them in terms of peace and
power in the Kingdom if he, their friend and leader,
should prove to be God's anointed. And now with the
eyes of Jesus penetrating their very souls and his clear
voice ringing in their ears they find themselves facing this
question again, compelled to answer and to speak the
truth. Peter finds himself first and, as was his wont,
speaks for them all in a quick, confident confession in
which, as he utters it, they know that he is speaking the
inmost faith of them all : "You are the Christ." It was a
tremendous word coming from these men on whom Christ's
heart was set, coming now in the hour of his humiliation
and rejection, and carrying in it such possibilities for the
Kingdom of Heaven on earth. At last, thought Jesus, at
last I have succeeded. It will be easier now to go for-
ward. They believe in me. "You are a blessed man,
Simon," says Jesus. "My Father told you this secret."
His face is radiant. Not for weeks has it shone as now.
"More than that," Jesus went on, "I say to you, Peter,
that you are a rock, on which I shall build henceforth.
Something has begun here this day against which every
hostile power shall break in vain. Even death itself shall
not defeat it."
It was one of those rare moments that seldom come in
human experience and are never forgotten. The very air
that they breathed was electric. In such a moment heaven
comes to earth. Anything could happen. And then sud-
[248]
JOHK" MILTON MOOEE
denly the radiance was dimmed as though a passing cloud
had veiled the face of the sun. "There is more to this, 55
said Jesus, "than I can tell you now. To-morrow we go
south to Galilee and on to Jerusalem. We are walking
straight into trouble. You know something of the opposi-
tion of the rulers. It is far more bitter and determined
than you imagine. I can no longer move freely through
Galilee. To think of seeking refuge in a foreign land is
abhorrent. I shall go to Jerusalem. I shall make the
final venture. I shall face the rulers of my people and
accept the fate that they decree. I can do no less than
this, though I foresee bonds and afflictions awaiting me. 55
The discrjgles were stunned. Exalted to heaven but a
moment ago, they have found themselves dashed suddenly
to earth. But Jesus has not finished. Hard as this dis-
closure is for him, he must go through with it to the last
terrible word. **You have been thinking of a throne,' 5 he
said ; "there is a throne awaiting me from which, after all 9
I shall rule the world. It is a Roman cross. I shall be
crucified. 55
Peter had been growing more and more excited. As
Jesus spoke that last terrible word, he rose suddenly with
a cry of angry protest. That very week they had passed
through one of, Jig RomanjeMes where executions had
left nigh a score of writhing victims on as many rough
crosses. Familiar as they were with such scenes of brutal
administration of Roman justice, they had all been un-
usually depressed by this wholesale execution. The cries
of these desperate men began again to clamor at Peter 5 s
heart as Jesus foretells his own fate in these terrible terms.
[249]
THE EETTJUN" OF SATAN
"Never," shouts Peter. "You should not talk like that.
You know that this can never be. You are the Messiah.
Take back those terrible words." His voice echoed up
and down the mountain side.
It is now Jesus' turn to be aroused. He had announced
his coming rejection and death in even tones from which
both fear and bitterness were absent. But his eyes were
flashing now. Something like terror appears in his face
for just a moment, leaving an awful fear clutching the
heart of each of the disciples as with a mighty hand.
Looking Peter full in the face as he stands there in his
grim determination to be done here and now with those
dark foreshadowings of doom, Jesus spoke in a voice that
might have come from some throne of eternal judgment.
"Satan ! Satan ! Get thee behind me ! What have I to do
with you that you return to torment me?" Peter started
back in horror. His distress is extreme. The Master's
face softens in pity. "0 Peter, Peter, you are hindering
me. You think like a man, not like God."
It was under the stress of this terrible experience that
we found the group there on the mountain side with Jesus
so thoughtful and Peter so hurt and the disciples all so
dazed. It was Jesus who broke the silence. "Listen,
Peter," he said softly, all trace of emotion gone from the
voice which but a moment ago was vibrant with feeling.
"Listen, Peter, and I shall tell you a story. I think you
will then understand why I who called you the blessed of
my Father but a moment ago should now have branded
you as Satan and drive you from before my face." And
this is the story that Jesus told Peter as the others sat
[250]
JOHN MILTON MOOBE
with him in amazed silence, as imagination would fill in
the brief outline of the New Testament record.
"Some of you know how on the evening of my baptism
I went down into the wilderness. I wished to be alone
with the Father to think through the revelation given me
as I came up from the water. It was a lonely place with
serpents underfoot and vultures overhead. A pitiless sun
beat down in the daytime, and a penetrating chill fell
upon the earth in the nighttime. The solitude of the
wilderness possessed me, body and soul. But through all
those days and nights my Father's voice was ringing in
my heart: 'Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well
pleased.' At the same time my mind was challenged by a
problem unsolvable as it seemed. I knew then what you
have but recently discovered and just now declared, that
I was the Messiah sent to deliver Israel. But the haunt-
ing, tormenting question that was with me night and day
was, How? How can the attention of the people be ar-
tUUttu, ' " "-"- ' ' . - - . ,,
rested? How can the rulers be persuaded to hear and
follow a Nazarene carpenter? How can the hearifof Is-
rael be turned from thoughts of vengeance on her enemies,
from independence upon violence and force, to brotherli-
ness and good will and love? I became famished. My
body was weak and wasted from hunger and exposure and
sleeplessness. And I found that Satan had come to the
Wilderness with me. I was fiercely tempted.
"It seemed to me then, as it has seemed to you, that the
sons of God ought to be children of special privilege, that
the Messiah ought to be immune from ordinary ills and
privation. All about me were stones that looked like
[251]
THE RETURN OF SATAN
loaves of bread. Why not exercise divine power and
change them into bread? And I was thinking not of my-
self alone. I knew how many hungry people there are in
Israel. I felt the weight of the world's misery. The
Father surely does not desire his little ones to starve.
Through miracles like this I could not only minister to
the poor, but I could also commend myself as the Messiah
and secure a following. I wrestled with that temptation
with all my spiritual energy. But at last it came clear.
An old scripture came to my mind: *Man shall not live by
bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the
mouth of God. 5 Man's chief lack is not material, but
spiritual. The spiritual is the real. Not an abundant
supply of bread but a brotherly spirit is Israel's great
need. No palliative measures are sufficient to bring in the
Kingdom. There must be radical reconstruction. And it
begins in the individual heart. I had won the victory.
"But the Tempter returned with a more subtle sug-
gestion. 'You are the Messiah,' he said, c you a carpenter
of Nazareth. But how do you expect anyone to believe
it? You must demonstrate your power over nature's
laws in some way. Go at once to Jerusalem and present
yourself at the Temple. It will be useless for you to come
as an ordinary artisan. Make your appearance as be-
comes the Messiah. Cast yourself down from the top of
the Temple. Land unhurt in the midst of the worshipers.
There can be no danger, for is it not written, "He shall
give his angels charge concerning thee ; and in their hands
they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot
against a stone"?'
[252]
JOHN MILTON MOOBE
"Again I was urged to use my special gifts to validate
my claims. And on a higher level than that of bread for
the body. If the Messiah may not claim this promise, for
whom was it written? To take this course in introducing
myself to Israel would arrest attention at once. It would
be a demonstration of supernatural power* The people
would believe in me. Was it not written, *The Lord whom
you seek shall suddenly come to his temple 5 ?
"Again the Scriptures came to my aid. Israel of old
had sought thus to prove God and claim freedom from
nature's laws. And his word had come through Moses
clear and positive. Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy
God.' I saw the way in which I must walk. I knew that
there would be insistent demand for a sign even as it has
come to pass. But I resolved to stoop to no bid for
cheap, quick popularity. I would not appeal to sense, but
to conscience. I would not claim powers that set me off
in aloofness from men. I would hold my gifts for service
rather than personal aggrandizement. I would not seek
to be safe and wondered at. I would accept normal human
limitations. I would venture all on spiritual values.
Again I had won.
"But the hardest trial of all was yet to come. I saw
the kingdoms of the world, their power and their glory.
I knew that they all belong by right to my Father. But
love and kindness and good will seemed such feeble instru-
ments with which to win them. I remembered how prone
men are to depend upon force and armies, to resort to war.
I knew the rebellious spirit that seethes in Israel at the
very remembrance of Rome. Surely there must be some
[ 253 ]
THE PETTIEST OF SATAN
compromise of idealism if one is to gain a hearing. Our
Scriptures justify war. Again and again Israel has ap-
pealed to the sword. Our cause against Rome is just.
Our national honor is disgraced daily. The heel of the
oppressor tramples on the hearts of the people. Surely
God will approve righteous revolt. Surely the Father's
heart is moved at the sufferings of his people. Surely he
must be ready to break the oppressors with a rod of iron,
as David saith, to dash them in pieces as a potter's vessel.
With this temptation I struggled long. But again, the
word of God came clear: 'Thou shalt worship the Lord
thy God, and him only shalt thou serve.' To compromise
with violence is to deny God. To wage war is to serve
Satan, Satan's weapons are worthless for God's battles.
The Kingdom of God can be established only by love.
c Get thee behind me, Satan,' I cried with all the energy I
could command. My physical exhaustion was almost com-
plete, but my spirit was exultant. I had won the final
victory. I came out of the wilderness to walk the way of
love, to follow the path of pain. I would conquer the
world with the sword of the Spirit, with the same weapon
through which I had subdued my own wavering spirit."
He paused for a moment as he looked in Peter's eyes
now filled with compassionate tears. "You understand
now," said Jesus. "The tempter was not completely van-
quished. Out there on the mountain side on the night on
which you tried to make me King I fought the whole
battle over again. And to-day in your violent though
friendly words of protest against the cross, I heard Ms
voice once more. In your countenance I saw his face. It
[254,]
JOEGST MILTON MOOEE
was the old temptation renewed, to choose the easy way, to
compromise, to forsake the Father, to serve Satan. My
face is set to go to Jerusalem. There is no other way.
And Peter said, 'Master, now I understand. Forgive me.
We will go with you to Jerusalem. We will walk with
you in the sorrowful way.' "
[255]
XVIII
Eternal Vigilance
JAMES EDWAKD FREEMAN
BISHOP OF WASHINGTON, DISTEICT OF COLUMBIA
PBOTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH
JAMES EDWARD FEEEMAN was born
in 1866 at New York City. He was educated
in the pnblic schools of that city and studied
theology under Bishop Henry C. Potter. The
degrees of Doctor of Divinity and Doctor of
Laws have been conferred upon him by many
universities.
He was rector of Saint Andrew's Memorial
Church, Yonkers, N. Y.; Saint Mark's Church,
Minneapolis, Minn.; and Epiphany Church,
Washington, D. C.
He was made Bishop of Washington in 1923.
He has, been influential in building the beauti-
ful Cathedral at Washington. He has been
state preacher on many occasions and is well
known in Church circles at home and abroad.
He is the author of Man and the Master, The
Ambassador, Everyday Religion, and Little
Sermons.
XVIII
ETERNAL VIGILANCE
A THANKSGIVING DAY SERMON
JAMES E. FEEEMAIST
THE nation is bidden to thanksgiving. A custom long
observed among us once again becomes our practice.
Rich and poor, in homes of every class and kind, are asked
to recognize a common fellowship and to acknowledge a
common obligation to the Giver of every good and per-
fect gift. Irrespective of station, prosperity, or adver-
sity, we are called on as a great family to remember with
gratitude the favor and protecting care of Almighty God.
The fact that the past year has been one that has tried
men's souls may not be submitted as a just cause for in-
gratitude. There are days in the calendar when we sub-
merge our personal fortunes and misfortunes, and in the
light of our larger communal interest see our place and
part in the comprehensive scheme of things. This day
fails of its purpose where the sense of our solidarity and
unity is ignored or forgotten. Whether we are willing
to recognize it or not, our lives are bound together by
ties that are indissoluble. Where these ties are not rec-
ognized, where selfish individualism displaces the sense of
corporate responsibility, we imperil society and the state.
It were well that we freshly emphasize this to-day, as it is
indispensable to our security and our continuing peace.
There is, thoughout the entire area of our country, a
[259]
ETERNAL VIGILANCE
condition that fills us with deep concern and anxiety ; it is
a condition that knows no geographical limitations ; it is
reflected in every part of the world. It is a condition that
is making us, more than ever before, conscious of the fact
that we share alike our fortunes or our misfortunes.
There are times when we lose sight of the universality of
our humanity, when we seem to forget the broader, fuller
meaning of a world brotherhood. This we may not do
now. Here in our own land a newer and finer demonstra-
tion of our interdependence is being furnished. We are
witnessing more of the spirit of brotherly kindness, more
of sacrificial giving of service and means than we have
known for a generation past.
The call of the less fortunate is finding a ready and gen-
erous response, and in our individual and corporate life
there are signs that men are thinking more deeply than
heretofore about their obligations. Where a period of
prosperity dulled our finer feelings and sensibilities, ren-
dering us selfish and insular, a common misfortune, with
its accompaniments of widespread distress and suffering,
has made us sensitive and responsive to the ills of others.
May we not discover, in this, one of the causes for our
thanksgiving? If we can note an improvement in our
outlook, if we can find that consciences are more sensitive,
hearts and hands more ready to respond to the needs of
others, we have causes for gratitude and praise.
Here may we acknowledge with thankfulness the finer
spirit disclosed in industry. The period of dangerous
drifting seems to be past. Call it altruism, a new sense
of the value of cooperation or a finer exhibition of Chris-
[ 260 ]
JAMES EDWARD FREEMAN
tian good will, of equity and fair dealing than has been
hitherto known. Where once bargaining and agreement
were solely matters for capital to determine, now employer
and employee, executive and worker plan together for
mutual interests. Since when has it happened that great
and sorely pressed corporations have asked for favors at
the hands of workers? Since when have we heard from
the head of one of our largest industries that capital and
labor alike must share the fortunes or misfortunes that
come with changed conditions and that labor must have
reasonable guarantees in days of depression and enforced
idleness? In these and other things we have occasion for
thankfulness to-day.
We are not contending that in every aspect of our life
we have attained ideal conditions. We are merely sub-
mitting evidences of an awakened conscience and a better
and more consistent practice. That these hopeful condi-
tions are coincident with and the result of a period of
depression and unsettlement, is clearly obvious. They
demonstrate that adversity, rather than prosperity, stirs
the minds and wills of men and provokes them to reflection
and nobler deeds of service. Here, indeed, we discover a
compensating circumstance that gives us fresh courage to
face the stern days that may lie ahead. In all this we
are not unmindful of those gifts and blessings that lie
beyond our power to design or create. Behind and beyond
all our genius resides that which God alone has the power
to bestow. Seedtime and harvest are evidences of the
creative and bountiful will and purpose of a beneficent
Father. Our best endeavors, our most splendid accom-
[261]
ETEKKTAI, YIGILAKCE
plishments are conditioned by the manifestations of his
goodness. Let there be but the failure of a single season, a
breach in the orderly procession and sequence, and we are
involved in disasters that all our ingenuity and skill can-
not stay. It is ours to build, to devise, to organize, to
manufacture. We build cities, create machinery, plan
great enterprises, invent new pleasures, accelerate the ac-
tivities of men, but we stand impotent and appalled where
the fertility and productiveness of the field is impaired or
drought or flood disturb the even tenor of the years.
Where are our power, our boasted strength and skill, our
vaunted self-dependence and our pride when the earth
fails us or the sun withholds its shining? Little wonder
that in his exaltation the poet of old exclaimed : "When I
consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon
and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man,
that thou art mindful of him?"
We shall not be charged with too great insularity if on
this day we give ourselves to reflection upon those things
that lie close to our life as a people. This will not mean
that we are unmindful of that more extended and inclu-
sive vision that comprehends, in its sweep, world interests.
As a nation we have enjoyed blessings and gifts that give
us a place of commanding prestige and influence. Our
rise and development have no parallel, and our growth
along every line renders comparisons impossible.
Even our trials have proved undisguised blessings, and
from days of shadow we have emerged stronger and more
resourceful. We have passed through crises unscarred,
with our unity unbroken and unimpaired. At times our
[ 262 ]
JAMES EDWABD EEEEMAN
people have disclosed impulses and deeds of generosity
that have lifted them to the levels of real nobility. We
have at great cost struck the shackles from enslaved peo-
ples and given of men and resources for the wider diffusion
of the freedom we cherish. In our better hours we have
risen to heights of selfless service and made the world our
debtor. Our gates have stood open to the oppressed of
other and less fortunate peoples. Youthful as we are,
the escutcheon of our life as a nation shows fewer blemishes
than our extraordinary growth would seem to warrant.
In a daring and untried experiment in government, we
have furnished an example that more and more commends
itself to other and older races and peoples. To briefly
chronicle the story of America's rise would command the
gifted pen of one who dreams and sees visions.
No single Thanksgiving Day is sufficient to express our
gratitude for what America has been, is, and is yet to be !
We dare not let the heavy shadows of the present obscure
our vision or render us unthankful for our inheritance.
Unworthy sharer in this bounty he who is forgetful on
this day of what he holds of blessings and privileges as a
son of this Republic. In all this we lay no claim to our
impeccability. We readily recognize our faults and ac-
knowledge our shortcomings. We have much yet to learn
and many hidden trails still to discover. Our pioneer days
are not altogether past, there are mountains of difficult as-
cent yet to be mastered. Faced with seemingly insuperable
and unsolvable problems, a pioneer of other days declared:
"None of these things move men." He was unperturbed
and undismayed by the difficulties that beset his path.
[263]
ETEBNAL VIGILANCE
There have been signs of late that betray the checking of
our enthusiasm and the halting of our progress. Fol-
lowing days of extraordinary and too swift development
we have sustained such a loss of confidence and initiative
as we have rarely, if ever, known. The very machinery
of our life has shown evidence of friction, and applied
lubricants have failed to accelerate our forward move-
ments. Our stored-up treasure is unimpaired ; but it has,
for the while, ceased to render service. An inarticulate
fear paralyzes our industry and threatens us with dire
calamity. Where once we pursued our course unlet and
unhindered, we now walk with halting feet and minds
shadowed by misgivings.
In such a situation the most adventuresome among us
hesitates, and the less thoughtful and reflective sustains
paralysis of energy. It is a condition that cannot and
must not last. It has its genesis in conditions that must
be courageously met and speedily remedied.
Apart from all causes extraneous to our life as a people,
we have been faulty and recreant in our planning and
scheming. Our economic and industrial structure has dis-
closed somewhere, in its footings or superstructure, de-
fects that betray our lack of cunning and skill. The archi-
tects and engineers failed in their calculations, and the
structure they builded lacks stability and capacity to en-
dure. Possibly they conceived too grandiose plans and
built too fast. Within a short space of time our cities
were remade and our skylines became the wonders of the
world. A nation famed for agriculture became a con-
tinent of cities, and our whole life reflected the spirit of a
[ 264]
JAMES EDWARD FKEEMAST
new age. Work and play became our dominant pursuits.
To "commit the oldest kind of sins the newest kind of
ways," to satisfy an appetite for variety and change, this
was the mad quest of youth and age alike. Our music it-
self suggested the ruling passion of the hour ; filled with
nervous action, blatant, crude, and barbaric, it bespoke
the restlessness of our life and the surrender of our
serenity. Domestic and social life alike discarded customs
and conventions that had long stood the test, customs and
conventions that spoke of decency, courtesy, and chivalry.
The old order under such conditions could have no place
of vantage. A new philosophy of life and its relations
came to be. It was a philosophy that gave instinct the
place of reason and made the satisfaction of the passions
the right and privilege of every man. A clever analyst of
the age and its trends discovers in our tendencies a rever-
sion to type. We spring from the lower forms of life, we
are simply returning to more primitive ways and habits.
He says: "The present depression of humanity has its
ground, I believe, solely in man's degraded sense of his
origin. We began in mud and we shall end in mud.
Humanity rots for a new definition of life." A severe
stricture, but with an ominous significance. The large
question that faces us on this latest day of national thanks-
giving is, Can the drift of our age, unarrested and un~
stayed, bring us to those higher stages of development
and satisfaction that have been the quest of men in all
ages and places? The query is a pertinent one, and upon
its answer rests the future form and character of our
civilization. What we do to-day inevitably determines
[ 265]
ETERNAL VIGILANCE
our future to-morrow. We shall leave to our children and
our children's children a heritage that will either lift them
to higher levels or lower them to depths we, in our better
hours, regard as unwholesome and unsatisfying. Beyond
all our efforts to restore order and the resumption of
normal conditions in commerce and industry, this of which
we speak is primary. We shall doubtless see the end of
our present distress and depression, unemployment will
give place to new and, let us hope, better and more equita-
ble conditions ; we shall go on our way in pursuit of trade
and the stabilizing of our industries. When all this is
accomplished, whither are we headed? Have we the ca-
pacity and the will to learn the mighty lessons which this
hour is seeking to enforce?
Such questions as these we cannot ignore, else we shall
experience even more tragic and somber days than those
through which we are now passing. We of America have
no original and unique cures for our ills. We are the
possessors of a great estate (someone calls us "the most
wasteful people in the world"), and our immediate and
conspicuous problem is one that has to do with so securing
to those that shall follow after what we held, that they
shall be saved from the perils that destroy both peace and
security. "After me, the deluge," was the selfish declara-
tion of a royal prince, and the deluge came. The present
hour is critical, and unrest and disillusionment hold the
world's people in their grip. If the more reflective and
sober among us cannot be made to see, and see quickly,
the urgent need for determined and certain action looking
to the buttressing and stabilizing of the structure we call
[266]
JAMES EBWAUD FEEEMAK"
"Christian civilization," there are dark and shadowy days
ahead.
Society is held together hy other and stronger ties
than those that have to do with commerce and industry;
even Federal and State laws do not guarantee the moral
character of a people. They have their essential place,
but obedience to their mandates is not secured through
courts or an alert and efficient constabulary. A few vic-
tims who pay the penalty of disobedience will not mitigate
the evils which the unapprehended effect in the corporate
life of society. It is not the lawlessness of the few who
are branded as criminals that constitutes our peril, it is
rather the lawlessness of the many, often more privileged
classes, who safeguard themselves against detection and
exposure. The people in this country who are sapping
the foundations of our institutions are, in the main, those
whose education, wealth, and position should compel them
to be vigilant against the day of disaster.
We cannot recognize, nor should we, any privileged
class. This is not an autocracy; it is a democracy, and
the sooner we deliberately and decisively set ourselves to
make this evident to all men, the sooner will we restore that
quiet, security, and prosperity which we desire and long
for. I am quite aware that all this seems foreign to the
spirit of this day, but I am reminded that thankfulness
for blessings past and blessings to come is of little worth,
unless we insure these blessings by recognizing the means
to their attainment.
I am speaking from the Cathedral in the Nation's Capi-
tal, a great building that stands primarily for righteous-
[267]
YIGILAKCE
ness, justice, and thith; a building that is the eloquent
witness to those things that the fathers of the Republic
conceived to be basic and fundamental. I am speaking
with a due recognition .of the perils of our present situa-
tion and with sensitive consideration for those whose needs
make them this day seem unreasonable and unworthy.
I am doubtless speaking t& others whose boards will bear
witness to comfort and plen,ty; it is a day for all such to
be stirred to action, to a fresh consideration of what is
their solemn obligation and weighty responsibility. We
have known in other days the 'pressure of adversity, but
we have not known such new and strange conditions as this
hour presents. Let us be quite clear in this, that the
temporary alleviation effected through Federal, State, or
community relief agencies is but 'J|n ephemeral and un-
satisfactory panacea. These thing^ we will and we must
do, but they will tragically fail of their purpose unless
they witness to our determination to set our house in order
and to affect such wholesome and salutary changes as shall
guarantee us against more grave and lasting misfortunes.
This is a home day, and to begin with the home is our
first duty. Disasters, in all the aspects of our life, have
their genesis here. A disordered and disorderly home is a
menace to the community in which it is placed. A social
practice that is vicious and that violates all the proprie-
ties or that in such days as these discloses extravagance
and excess of indulgence is threatening to our very se-
curity. One such ostentatious exhibition may do more to
foster and promote unrest and lead to violences than all
our wholesome institutions have the power to resist and
[268]
JAMES EDWAED FEEEMA1ST
overcome. A brief study of the later phases of Russian
life under the old regime might prove profitable and
wholesome at the present time. There is an irresistible
logic in events that all too frequently we overlook. The
breaking down of all law, and radical changes in the social
and economic order, follow with irresistible force the prac-
tices and habits of those who selfishly live unresponsive
and indifferent to the common weal.
We should certainly be recreant at such a time as this,
did we not discover the essential place which religious
faith and practice hold in the scheme of our life. There
are doubtless conditions under which a misdirected and
misinterpreted religious zeal may become the opiate of the
people. Religion may, at times, be employed to repress
and hold in bondage the ignorant and those who are com-
pelled by circumstances to obey the dictim of its false and
sometimes corrupt teachers. This can hardly be used as
an argument against the proper and wholesome disci-
plines which a right recognition of religion imposes.
It is for this we plead to-day.
That the relaxing of all wholesome religious practices
can tend to advance our condition and insure to us a
larger freedom and a greater security will be doubted,
even by those who make no profession of religion. In our
scheme of life religion does occupy a conspicuous and es-
sential place. Said a keen observer to us lately: "The
building of a great cathedral in such a day as this seems
strange and anomalous, especially when the drift is so
distinctly away from the Church and the observance of
religious obligations." We do not accept this observation
[ 269]
ETEBNAL YIGILAJSTCE
as accurate ; but if it is even partially so, it reflects a state
of mind and a condition that should give us more concern
than the present dislocation of industry with all its at-
tendant ills. That the morale of a people is grounded in
a religious conviction, and that it is a vital element in
shaping their conduct, is clearly evident. The morality
of a people determines their hahits and their stability.
Of late we have seemed to think that we can get on without
these elements in our life. Where they are not recognized
a situation inevitably ensues that issues in disorder, law-
lessness, and criminality, and may ultimately lead to con-
ditions wherein life itself is insecure.
We cannot buy our peace or our permanence in the
open markets of the world where we freely purchase our
luxuries. Restricted as our religious institutions are in
their operation, ineffective as they may be by reason of the
limitations of those who administer them, they cannot be
disregarded or ignored when we are reckoning our safe-
guards, i The nation's first line of defense, now and al-
ways, is the moral character of its citizens.^ Let this be
undervalued or indifferently regarded, and we not only
lower our standards ; we imperil our most cherished insti-
tutions. No thoughtful or reflective citizen can lightly
esteem signs that the very criticalness of this present
period makes evident. Our national situation cannot be
regarded as immune to certain ominous conditions that
prevail throughout the world. There are malevolent
forces that avowedly design the breaking down of our in-
stitutions. They are aided and abetted by a propaganda
that works ceaselessly, zealously, and covertly, night and
[ 270 ]
JAMES EDWABD
day. They reckon not with religion, it is a spent force ;
life has no sanctities, no decencies, no binding marital ties,
no code of ethics, no reverence no God* To fulfill the
lusts of the flesh, to abolish all initiative, all attainment, all
honor, these they would have us recognize as the new order.
There are those of intelligence and position in our own
and other lands who are disposed to play with such
sophistries and in doing so imperil the State. The only
instrument that can combat these elements is an awakened
and aroused civic conscience and consciousness. It was
once boldly affirmed that "eternal vigilance is the price of
liberty." We need a revival of this to-day, but it must be
a revival that bears witness to our determination to better,
more consistent, more wholesome living. Above all else,
this nation needs a deep, penetrating, character-forming
revival of religion. It must be a revival that touches with
its revivifying and renewing power every phase and aspect
of our life. It must mean better and fairer relations be-
tween employer and employee in shop and workroom, more
wholesome and cleanly conditions in our domestic and
social life, more of equity and justice in judicial procedure,
more of high-minded patriotism and self-giving in the ad-
ministration in the affairs of state and nation; less of
greed and oppression, of graft and corruption in all hu-
man relations ; in fine, a truer approximation of the Chris-
tian ideal of living.
Let us be solemnly admonished on this, our national
Thanksgiving Day, that we will with consistency and re-
newed consecration set ourselves to the greatest task that
lies before us, or surrender ultimately to forces that will
[271]
ETERNAL VIGILANCE
make havoc of our institutions. America holds a proud
and enviable position among the nations of the earth to-
day ; if she would preserve to posterity her most treasured
institutions, the institutions she holds most dearly, let her
be aroused from her dream of a new era of prosperity and
gird herself to a task that will test her moral courage and
her spiritual worth to the utmost.
To the homes of the Republic, the homes of native sons
and foreign-born alike, we send, from the Cathedral in the
capital, affectionate greetings and the assurance of our
high hopes that there may come, and come speedily, the
day of better things, when peace and contentment shall
dwell at every fireside and men and women and little chil-
dren shall be safeguarded and secured by a virile and sup-
porting Christian faith.
[272]
XIX
Lengthen the Cords
ANGIE FRANK SMITH
BISHOP, METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH, SOUTH
HOUSTON, TEX.
ANGIE FRANK SMITH was born in 1889
at Elgin, Tex. He graduated from South-
western University with the A.B. degree.
The honorary degree of Doctor of Divinity was
conferred on him by the same institution. He
was also a student in the School of Theology at
Vanderbilt University.
He was ordained in the Methodist ministry.
He has been pastor at Highland Park, Dallas,
University Church, Austin, Laurel Heights, San
Antonio, and First Church, Houston.
He was made Bishop in 1930.
He is a member of the Commission on the
Revision of the Hymnal of the three participat-
ing Methodist Churches and one of the episcopal
members of the General Board of Lay Activities
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,
He is an attractive and forceful preacher of
the Word.
XIX
LENGTHEN THE CORDS
A. FEANK SMITH
Enlarge the place of thy tent, and let them
stretch forth the curtains of thine habitations:
spare not, lengthen thy cords, and strengthen
thy stakes; for thou shalt break forth on the
right hand and on the left; and thy seed shall
inherit the Gentiles, and make the desolate cities
to be inhabited. ISAIAH 54: 2, 3.
THE historian of the future will undoubtedly refer to the
first quarter of the twentieth century as a Golden Era in
the life and accomplishments of the Church in America.
It has been a period of remarkable prosperity and expan-
sion upon the part of the American nation, and the
Church has shared in this advance. A gigantic building
program has placed adequate houses of worship all oyer
the land, ranging from stately temples to modest chapels,
while schools, hospitals, and various types of eleemosynary
institutions have been builded from border to border. The
post-war missionary movements raised hundreds of mil-
lions of dollars, and extended the activities of the Church
unto the uttermost parts of the earth. Internally, this
period has been marked by great strides in the realms of
sane Biblical scholarship, and of constructive approach
to the problems of religious education.
[275]
LENGTHEN" THE COEDS
Outside the Church, her influence has manifested itself
in a deepening of the sense of social responsibility in busi-
ness and government. There has been steady improvement
in industrial relations, on the whole; every community,
however remote, has a sense of social responsibility mani-
festing itself in service clubs and various types of welfare
organizations, while city, county, state, and national gov-
ernments have revealed a steadily increasing interest in
their social obligations. Verily, it seemed that we were on
the road to perfection and, given due time, the Kingdom
of God would be ushered in through the orderly develop-
ment of the ecclesiastical, social, and industrial systems in
vogue.
Such is the picture of the Church and society in gen-
eral, and such was the thinking upon the part of multi-
tudes, both within and without the Church. Then came
the disillusionment! Our vaunted prosperity proved to
be mere inflation, and in the resultant collapse our house
was pulled down about our ears. It is not necessary to
dwell upon the developments of these years of the "de-
pression," to cite the abject want in the face of abundance,
to speak of the bewilderment and despair evident upon all
sides, nor of the grim specter of revolt that constantly
hovers over us. Suffice it to say that our social and eco-
nomic system has proven unequal to the demands laid upon
it, and we have suffered a brutal awakening from our smug
complacency of past years. We are not interested, in this
connection, in discussing the causes of this condition, nor
in elaborating upon proposed remedies; but we are tre-
[276]
ANGIE FRANK SMITH
mendously interested in the part the Church has to play,
both to-day and in the days to come, in the reshaping of
the life and thinking of the people.
Not since Jesus walked the streets of Jerusalem has
there been greater need for the preaching of his gospel,
nor a more propitious day for its application. The world
is in a ferment, socially, politically, industrially, intellec-
tually ; the shell of complacency is shattered, change is in
the air. Men yearn for, and will hearken to, the voice that
speaks with assurance and authority.
What is the message the world needs today, to what call
will it respond? Unquestionably the supreme need of the
world to-day is a call to the impossible, a challenge to at-
tempt that which is utterly futile, if not foolish, measured
by human standards alone.
What of the Church? Are we able to sound this call,
and to lead the way? In all honesty, the Church must face
certain facts that grow out of her very prosperity of past
days, and we must set our own house in order before we
dare sound any call to the world. The prosperity of the
years preceding and following the World War, together
with our absorption in "Drives" and "Goals" and "Quotas,"
served to identify these tangible things as ends within
themselves, and the mission of the Church, in the thinking
of multitudes, was achieved when we "went over the top"
in this movement or that. Money was plentiful and our
people responded in unprecedented fashion to all these
calls; more money was given for religious and altruistic
purposes during those years than in any similar period of
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LENGTHEN THE COEDS
time in the history of the race. And with what result? In
the first place, there was little of self-denial represented in
this giving. Out of our abundance we gave of the over-
flow ; there was no need for sacrifice. Neither did our giv-
ing increase in proportion to the increase in our standard
of living, and our expenditures for luxuries. In the second
place, we developed a spirit of complacency and self-
satisfaction. Our spiritual demands were largely met when
we had done our part toward reaching the "quota" ; it was
easy for most of us to achieve our idealism. To he moral
and generous, a good citizen, and a good parent was all
that could be expected of one, anyway. This complacency
was revealed in our attitude toward life in general. So
long as we were getting along all right, why be bothered
about abuses in government, in business, in the social
order?
We did not seem to be terribly in earnest about anything
save in getting along ourselves, and the capacity for high
moral indignation was in sad eclipse. Witness our in-
difference to the growing disrespect for constituted au-
thority, manifest on all sides, and to corruption in business
and government, high and low. The truth of the matter
is that the Church has become soft, through ease, through
lack of self-denial, through self-satisfaction ; our reach no
longer exceeds our grasp. I do not mean to bring whole-
sale indictment against the Church, nor to impugn the
loyalty and zeal of faithful men and women, who are to be
found in every congregation. I simply call attention
to a condition that exists, growing out of the times through
which we have passed, and a condition which is both a rebuke
[ 278 ]
ANGIE FRANK SMITH
and a challenge to the Church. We must purge ourselves
of this softness, we must dedicate ourselves, under God, to
that life which is utterly beyond the comprehension of the
world, if we would speak with authority to a confused,
despairing humanity. As in the days of the Prophet, God
calls to us to "lengthen our cords," to widen our horizons,
to strike our tents for the march that is before us.
In three particulars must we "lengthen our cords."
Firsts in complete personal consecration to Jesus Christ;
second, and growing out of the first, in an honest attempt
to apply the principles of Jesus to all departments of life ;
third, and likewise growing out of the first, in a vivid con-
sciousness of our immortality.
First : personal consecration to Jesus Christ.
Relation to Jesus as the Lord of all life must be pre-
ceded by the proper attitude toward God. Not a new at-
titude, or truth, but the vitalization of one of the primal
articles in the common creed of Christendom is the need
of the Church. The Sovereign Nature of God is accepted
wherever men call his Name, but this truth has largely
lost its power in our thinking. During the Colonial Period,
and in the early days of the Republic, life was hard, and the
type of life they lived was reflected in the thinking of the
people about God; his sovereignty and his inexorable judg-
ment was ever before them. "It was an iron creed, but it
made iron men, so that the world never knew braver or
stronger men. This humbling creed, this ennobling creed,
which made a man feel that he was an instrument and mes-
senger of Almighty God, made mighty men, men who
would neither bend nor bow, who feared none but God,
[ 279]
LENGTHEN THE COEDS
who with splendid courage crashed against all sorts of
tyrannies and wrongs." Such was the faith that laid the
basis of our American civilization and culture. With the
passing of time, however, life became easier, and there de-
veloped a love of ease that reflected itself in the religious
thinking of the people. Less and less were the sovereignty
of God, his awful holiness, and his judgments stressed;
more and more were his love, and sympathy, and forgive-
ness emphasized with the result that the extreme that pic-
tured God as a stern, always just, yet implacable judge of
all men, has given way to an extreme that conceives of God
as so tender and forgiving, so sympathetic and understand-
ing, that judgment plays small part in our calculations.
No longer overwhelmed with a sense of awe in the Divine
Presence, no longer oppressed with a realization of our own
unworthiness, we inevitably lose the consciousness of sin,
we forget the meaning of real repentance. Such is the at-
titude toward God of multitudes of our people to-day. A
genial humanitarianism is the prevailing temper of the
hour.
The basis of all righteousness is the proper attitude
toward God, and it is idle to prate about spiritual guidance
till we have set ourselves right in this basal relationship.
When love is divorced from justice and judgment, it is no
longer love, it is mere sentimentality, and weak sentimen-
tality at that. The prophets of all ages have been men to
whom the judgments of God were tremendously real; such
realization puts iron in the blood and the spirit of the
martyr in the soul.
[280]
AKGIE FRANK SMITH
With a rebirth of the doctrine of the Sovereignty of God
in our souls, we will repent, and prostrate ourselves before
him, and we shall then be prepared to enthrone Jesus in
our lives. One wonders to what extent we are willing to
take Jesus seriously, and to go all the way with him, what-
ever the cost may be. This generation knows little of a
consecration that costs anything; we have admired the
beauty of Jesus' life, we have acknowledged the wisdom of
his teachings, we have used the cross as a symbol in art
and worship ; but it has not cost us anything in blood or
sweat or pain. Why? Because our conception of the
Christian life has not demanded a break with established
conventions, nor a varying from the routine of accepted
regimen. It has not meant the impossible to us.
It has been said that, even as the Lutheran Revival
emphasized Justification by Faith, and the Wesleyan Re-
vival the Witness of the Spirit, so will the next great re-
vival emphasize the personality and preeminence of Jesus.
Church of the Living God, lengthen your cords, that
the world may see what Christ-filled men and women may
be and do !
In the second place, we must lengthen our cords with
respect to the application of the principles of Jesus to all
the problems of life. The time is upon us when the social
order should be, and must be, Christianized to an extent
never before possible. Too long have we accepted the
present economic and social system as inviolable. What-
ever the future may bring, one thing is certain : it will wit-
ness vast changes in the social and economic set-up of the
races of the earth. Those changes may be in the direction
[281]
LENGTHEN THE COBDS
of an atheistic communism, or they may be a definite step
toward the incoming of the Kingdom of God among men.
The issue is in our hands. We hear much about keeping
religion and politics and business in their respective places.
As though it were possible to separate them ! The Church
is not a political party, nor an economic theory, nor a so-
cial creed ; but the Christian is a follower of Jesus in his
political alignments, his business practices, and his social
contacts.
The saving of souls and the building of character
constitute the only justification the gospel of Jesus
knows for the making of money and the maintenance of
social and governmental organizations. To an alarming
extent the rank and file of our citizens have lost confidence
in the ability, and even in the integrity, of business and
government. There rests upon spiritually-minded men
and women to-day the double necessity of restoring con-
fidence in business and in government, and of charting the
future path of each along sane constructive lines. We are
face to face with imminent social changes and legislation of
far-reaching import; let right-thinking men and women
approach these changes with open minds, and in the spirit
of Jesus! The problems of unemployment, of changed
standards of living, of proper distribution of wealth, of
international trade relations and war debts and disarma-
ment are questions that affect the life and destiny of hun-
dreds of millions of people. Never before has there been
the opportunity to apply the principles of Jesus to the
problems of humanity in such wholesale fashion as is the
case to-day.
[ 282]
ANGDE FRANK SMITH
The development of the machine age calls for a corre-
sponding increase in our sense of moral responsibility.
Either we use these increased powers for the welfare of
the race and the glory of God, or the forces of evil will
use them to the destruction of humanity. The machine age
must be spiritualized, or it will inevitably destroy itself
and the race with it. Every economic and moral reform
calls for an increased discipline upon the part of the race,
that the reform may succeed, and the years just ahead of us
will require a courage, a stability, and a power of self-
discipline far beyond that demanded of any generation in
modern times.
In the third place, we must "lengthen our cords" with
respect to the consciousness of our immortality. Perspec-
tive determines values ; values are created by the standard
of measurement employed. The house fly is old at twenty-
four hours, the oak tree is young at one hundred years.
The person to whom the span of life between the cradle
and the grave is all of existence, necessarily cannot have
the sense of values of that one to whom the grave is but
an incident, and for whom this life is but a novitiate.
Values for the former must be determined by more or less
immediate realization, while the latter has the long look.
Life for him is not a battle, but a war, the war of the
ages ; the first consideration is not the winning of any one
battle, but the winning of the war. It was so with Paul:
"I have fought m the good fight. 55 The supreme measure
of values is not, Am I winning now? but rather, Am I on
the right side?
Perhaps the early Church was too "otherworldly" in its
[283]
LENGTHEN THE COEDS
thinking. Such a charge has been laid at its door, whether
justified or not. But most certainly that cannot be said of
the Church of to-day. We have need to cultivate the long
look, to shake ourselves loose from the narrow confines of
things and of time, to realize that God knows nothing of
time, and that the calendar is an expedient of the finite mind.
We need to know with every waking moment that we are
the children of God, and that our immortality is not some
mystical vestment to be donned at the grave, but that it has
already begun, never to be interrupted, and that it is the
most inevitable and practical consideration with which we
have to deal in this sphere of existence.
Imbued with this consciousness of our divinity, we find
the Glory of God in all of life, and difficulties constitute
the altar stairs that lead into his Presence.
"I am aware
As I go commonly sweeping the stair,
Doing my part of the everyday care
Human and simple my lot and share
I am aware of a marvelous thing:
Voices that murmur and echoes that ring
In the far stellar spaces where cherubim sing.
I am aware of the passion that pours
Down the channels of fire through Infinity's doors;
Forces creative, with melody shod,
Music that mates with the pleasure of God.
I am aware of the glory that runs
From the core of myself to the core of the suns.
Bound to the stars by invisible chains,
Blaze of eternity now in my veins,
Here in the midst of the everyday air
I am aware I"
[284]
AISTGIE FRANK SMITH
We live in a tragic, but a glorious day. The world des-
perately needs, and will have, direction of some sort; the
destiny of generations hangs upon the nature of that
direction. Under God, and in his Name, his Church will
not fail him in this hour.
"God, what a world, if men In street and mart
Felt that same kinship of the human heart
Which makes them, in the face of fire and flood.
Rise to the meaning of true brotherhood."
[285]
XX
The Sin of Neutrality
JOHN ALEXANDER BUTTON
EDITOR, THE BRITISH WEEKLY
LONDON, ENGLAND
JOHN ALEXANDER HUTTON was born
in 1868 at Coatbridge, Lanarkshire, England.
He attended preparatory schools in Glasgow
and graduated with the degree of Master of
Arts from Glasgow University. The honorary
degree of Doctor of Divinity has been con-
ferred upon him.
He was ordained to the ministry in Alyth,
Perthshire, in 1892. He was called to Bristo
Church in Edinburgh, 1898; Jesmond, New-
castle-on-Tyne, 1900; Belhaven, Glasgow,
1906; and was minister at Westminster Chapel
in 1923.
He has been editor of the British Weekly
since 1925.
He is in constant demand throughout Eng-
land and Scotland as a preacher on anniver-
sary occasions. He has been the lecturer on
preaching at Aberdeen, Edinburgh, and Glas-
gow Universities.
He is the author of many books, the best
known of which are Pilgrims in the Region of
Faith, The Authority and Person of Our Lord,
The Winds of God, The Fear of Things, The
Proposal of Jesus, That the Ministry Be Not
Blamed, Victory over Victory, There They
Crucified Him, and Guidance from Francis
Thompson in Matters of Faith.
He is a world figure in religion.
XX
THE SIN OF NEUTRALITY
JOHN A. HTJTTON
.... And shall ye sit here?
NUMBERS 32: 6.
PERHAPS we human beings find our surest guidance
through life not so much by the help of lights which in-
vite us to come their way, as by lights which warn
us off. In short, for the most part we are sure, not so
much of what is right, as we are of what is wrong. Again
and again in the course of our life we may not be quite
certain that some precise way is the right way and later
on and at the last will prove to have been the right way ;
but at such times of hesitation and perplexity in almost
every case we know that certain alternative courses which
are possible are in fact forbidden.
Many a time, I am sure, we must all of us have stood at
some such crossroads in our personal life. We did not
know (how could we know?) which was the right way
the way of honor, or of faith. But when we confronted
our minds with the alternatives which offered themselves
to us, we were always able to say of one thing and an-
other, that whatever might be the right way, this or that
was the wrong.
And so, as a matter of history, the great moral codes,
like the law of Sinai, take in the first instance the form of
negatives and prohibitions: not "Thou shalt" but '
[289]
THE BIN OF NEUTRALITY
shall not." And when the attempt is made, say by our
august Shorter Catechism, to define the nature of God,
and to describe the nature of the truly good life, this is
done really by a process of negation and exclusion to the
effect that God is not this or that, and that the truly good
life is not this or that* In fact, positive and negative are
the same thing from different sides and it is the negative
side alone with which we human beings are, to begin with,
competent to deal.
It is because that principle is very clearly in my own
mind and supported by my own experience that I do not
allow myself to be depressed, say by the criticism that
the Church is always a little behind the age, that she does
not lead with a kind of Chorybantic confidence. Life is
always earlier than wisdom. And life must be allowed to
get under way before it can be directed. A ship's rudder
is very satisfactorily placed at the stern of the ship.
Placed there, it guides the huge mass how? By a series
of restraints and restrictions. A ship's helm, you might
say, does not guide the ship in the appointed way. The
ship 3 s helm, by a series of resistances, simply forbids the
ship from going any way but the very way that the mas-
ter has chosen. There is first that which is natural, and
afterwards in the rear, that is to say, but related or-
ganically to this urging, wayward^ capricious, disastrous
mass afterwards that which is spiritual.
We may not be quite sure at this moment, and we may
never be absolutely sure, that man, the human race, or you
and I, are related inextricably to God. We may never
be quite sure, sure without the possibility of the slightest
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JOHN ALEXANDEE HUTTOIST
misgiving, that there is something in us which separates
us from every other creature, something of such a kind
that death cannot touch it but can only set it free to enter
upon an eternal career we may never be quite mathe-
matically certain of all that. But we are absolutely cer-
tain of this that whenever man has adopted any other
view of himself, and has acted with thoroughness upon
that other view, whenever he has fallen in with his lower
and merely physical nature, he has in the long run (and
that not a very long run) let loose within himself a dis~
orderliness, and fear of life, a panic and sense of shame,
such as has taught him that, whatever be the final truth
about him, the lower interpretation is not the truth. It
may be that, in the long way by which he has come, man
arrived at God as the result of certain terrible experi-
ments from the consequences of which he swung back
this way and that way, until some man of genius hit upon
the truth that the true way for man was midway be-
tween the various oscillations, and to that mid-channel he
gave a name which we have baptized into the name of God.
All this and much more was suggested to my mind by a
few words and a particular phrase which I read in the
press the other day. An Ambassador of a great and
friendly Power, speaking on some occasion, doubtless an
informal one, reviewing the situation in Europe at this
moment where once again it would seem as though we were
on the edge of disastrous events reviewing all that, de-
clared that his country was well out of it all, that she wast
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THE SIN OF NEUTRALITY
lucky not to be entangled in this European strife. In
fact, Ms own words were even more robust and heartfelt ;
for he is reported to have said that his country was
"damned well out of the League of Nations."
Now the first effect of those words upon me was this :
that whatever may be the right course to take with re-
gard to Europe, that certainly is the wrong course ; that
whatever be the right and helpful attitude to take up to-
ward people, toward a nation or a race which is in trouble,
even when that trouble may be partially or entirely the
result of their own stupidity or wickedness, it is never
right to stand apart and to congratulate ourselves that
we have made such arrangements for ourselves or have
inherited such securities that we think we are able to
jstand apart.
II
Next moment almost I was not thinking at all of the
Ambassador ; for I am one of those who will never permit
themselves to doubt that that great people wishes well
to the human race and has already given many a token
that when her heart and conscience are engaged she will
scorn all consequences to follow where they beckon.
What happened in my own mind was that I suddenly
perceived the very nature of Christianity, its sign through
all the ages from the moment away beyond time when
it first leapt in the womb of eternity and took form in
the mind of God: I might have some difficulty in saying
offhand and adequately what Christianity is; but I can
say at once that the spirit or mood of impatience or con-
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JOHN ALEXANDEE HUTTO1ST
tempt of man's pathetic blundering and sinning which can
express itself in such a phrase as "we are damned well
out of that trouble 55 is the definite and precise opposite
and contradiction of Christianity. If from eternity God
had acted in such a spirit or had given way to such a mood
of petulance and scorn of us, we might still have been
black animals fighting among the trees or tearing each
other in the slime of the earth. And if no higher thought
had ever been entertained by man, as he pondered the
harsh lot of his fellows, lepers would still have been left
everywhere to rot in their graves ; the poor to crouch and
crawl in sunless dens ; and the highest wisdom of the world
would have been a cold and shrewd contempt for weak-
ness, the negation of God in fact erected into a system.
But, God be praised, he was always regarded as a poor
specimen of the race who first quoted this low philosophy
to evade the disclosure of his crime and asked, "Am I my
brother's keeper?"
Yes : I do not know a saying which so swiftly can tell us
our whereabouts in the spiritual world as such a saying
like that about "being well out of some trouble.** It is like
a plummet let down from heaven ; so that we need none of
us be in a moment's doubt as to what God thinks of us.
Ill
Of course, "we may all keep out of things"; but our
religion is unanimous on this, that we cannot keep weft
out of things : that in fact if we still feel well when we keep
out of things which should engage our sympathy and the
devotion of all our powers, it can only be because we are
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THE SIN OF NEUTRALITY
"damned well out of them" : that is to say, we are well, but
damned! For in a great parable of our Lord's that is the
very definition of those who are lost that they are out-
side, outside some task and experience so great that to go
through with it one must think incessantly on God and on
the very God who in Christ took part with us in life and
in death.
IV
The Bible, Old and New Testament alike, has some great
stories illustrating the spirit which stands outside some
troublesome task, and even takes credit to itself for its
bearing. There is, for example, that story of the men of
Reuben and of Gad who proposed to keep what they had
secured and to let the other ten tribes fend for them-
selves. They were very frank about it. They said : "This
is a land for cattle, and thy servants have cattle. Let
this land be given unto thy servants for a possession, and
bring us not over Jordan." That is to say : "We are all
right. Why then should we not settle down with what we
have? Why should we postpone settling down until our
brethren are all settled down? Why should we not settle
down happily with our wives and children in this land
which suits us so very remarkably that it would almost
seem as though God had been thinking of us when he
made it?" To which Moses in effect retorted: "The rea-
son why you must not settle down peacefully until your
brethren are all settled, is that you are men, and they are
your brethren. To wipe out that, is to wipe out the sun.
It is to repudiate the human soul. It is to deny God and
[294]
JOHN ALEXA3STDEE HUTTON"
the Spirit. It is to rank themselves with your cattle.
They want to stop and eat amongst the luscious grass:
and so do you. You forget that the men of the other ten
tribes helped you to fight your battles. But for them
where would you have been in the day when Amalek at-
tacked us all?" In fact, what was struggling to the lips
of Moses was what we know : that life is historical and or-
ganic. That we have all of us come on what we have in
the way of amenity and security and well-being, not as the
result of our own ability or endurance; but always as the
result of everything that has gone before. We have all
shared each other's visions and the fruits of the travail
of others* souls. We are debtors to every nation on the
earth, having learned all we have learned, not from our
own springs, but from the wide world. Who gave us our
thoughts of God? Who, of beauty? Who, of law? Who,
of political and personal freedom? Were they not the
Jews, and the Greeks, and the Romans, and the Northern
races of which French, German, British, and American
are families and branches?
But Moses said more. He said in effect: I cannot ex-
plain how these things work. But I do know that no man
and no nation can stand apart from the sufferings and
the miseries, from the sins even, of Ms fellow men, and
escape a secret and devastating retribution. It Is a sin
which, though it may have the look of virtue, almost more
than the sin of a high hand, weakens us and finds us out.
In the New Testament we have the story from our
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THE SIN OF NEUTRALITY
Lord's lips, and Ms judgment, of first a priest and then a
Levite who, going down from Jerusalem to Jericho, saw a
man lying in a ditch. The same idea, it would seem, oc-
curred to both of them: though there was no collusion.
That they would be well to have nothing to do with the
business! Perhaps they admitted that it was a sad busi-
ness; but and then they may have recalled all sorts of
proverbs and epigrams such as occur readily to us all to
justify ourselves in our own eyes. They may have mut-
tered something to themselves about the foolishness of
"asking for trouble," and how a man does well who "minds
his own business." At any rate, they crossed to the other
side of the road and pretended not to notice the heap in
the ditch which certainly had looked like the body of a
man. I doubt whether they were very comfortable, as I
doubt very much whether anyone is comfortable when he
is behaving as he rather suspects he ought not to behave.
But in a little while any uneasiness would pass.
They would perhaps even forget the entire incident. Or
if it came back into their minds, they would say that they
were ec well out of it."
But two thousand years of Christian thinking has pil-
loried those men for their behavior, agreeing indeed that
they were well out of it but that their deed damns them
forever.
VI
But we may learn what in the view of our Lord him-
self was the very essence and spirit and entire meaning
and purpose of his intervention in history, from ponder-
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JOH1ST ALEXANDER HUTTON
ing the nature of the first pitched battle which our Lord
himself had to engage in. We call it the Temptation in
the Wilderness. But what was the nature of that Tempta-
tion? Was it not simply an appeal to Jesus to take the
low and easy way through life? To let things alone? To
keep clear of the disputes and discussions and animosi-
ties which indeed were bitter and squalid enough? To this
end the devil flattered Jesus. He told him in effect that
he was too good, too fine, to be mixed up in these affairs.
That he would only get hurt. That meanwhile he would
do no good. That men were men, meaning, as we always
mean when we say that, that men are not men, but ani-
mals. That they were all out for their own hand. That
it was folly to suppose they could ever come together and
unite on some beautiful interpretation of life.
Now what makes temptation a real thing, so that the
heat of its appeal mounts and mounts until, unless we
close our ears and run, or unless we are as pure as God,
we shall succumb what makes the heat and power of a
genuine temptation is that there is an immense amount of
truth in it. That would never be a temptation to any of
us which at the very moment we could see through. So it
was when our Lord was tempted forty days in the wilder-
ness. All that the Tempter said was true. It was a bitter
and squalid arena on which our Lord would have to at-
tempt his task. It was a people of debased and petty
ideals that our Lord would have to address that language
of the spirit which after two thousand years is still like
Noah's dove seeking for a resting place. It was true that
if he interfered he would be hurt. It was true that if he
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THE SIN OF NEUTBALITY
got mixed up In their disputes he would be caught in
malicious wheels; and, displeasing one party and the
other, he would be done to death by both. It was all true.
But it was not all the truth. For it omitted God. And
it omitted Man. It forgot that there is such a thing as
the readiness to suffer, to take a risk. It forgot that
there is a point of view from which high failure o'ertops
low success ; and that to give oneself in a desperate cause,
with but one chance in a million that our intervening will
be of service, has always been held to be of the very nature
of goodness. The low argument forgot all these things
and forgot this, that there is a region of behavior in which
it will always be well that men should not argue, balancing
reasons and likelihoods and anticipating rewards, a region
in which it will be well for us and for the fairer prospect
of the human race that men shall yield themselves heartily
to the final human language to pity, to friendliness,
though that pity and friendliness overwhelm us in some
temporary disaster. For what security for the race is
there except that that shall always and in each age be
deemed a hideous prosperity which can bear to look upon
the sorrows of others and even their sins without uneasi-
ness and compassion, and the obscure but haunting sense
that all are to be blamed for the miseries of each?
VII
Now there will always be need for those who have any
responsibility for the drift and set of men's thoughts
about life to speak with emphasis upon such a tempta-
tion as that. It is so much easier to convict ourselves and
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JOHN ALEXA1STDEE HUTTOK
to rebuke others for doing something than for failing to
do something. It is so natural for us to take credit to
ourselves for having fulfilled those requirements which
keep us decent and respectable and legally just. It is
not so easy for us to take blame for not having done cer-
tain other things. We may always say that we had our
own concerns : or that we could not be sure that by inter-
vening we might not do more harm than good. But we at
least who are Christians must not close our hearts to
certain finer voices, to certain more delicate and even
complicated appeals, and to calls which are indeed beset
with difficulties whether we refuse them or obey them.
For, to say no more, our Lord has warned us that, in the
end of the days when we stand before God to be judged,
our condemnation is the more likely to befall us, not for
what we have done, but for what we did not do; not for
our failures as we tried to take a man's part in this world ;
not for the marks of wounds taken in the battle of life;
but for the ease which we defended ; for the mean securities
which we treasured; for the smooth unwrinkled brow which
ought to have been furrowed with cares ; and for the white
hands which ought to have been scarred with labor, or
bent with the long wielding of a faithful sword.
[299]
COLOPHON
VOICES or LIVING PEOPHETS was set on the
Linotype in eleven-point Scotch, leaded three
points. Its excellently proportioned letters and
harmonious color make for easy reading. The
essential characteristics of the Scotch face are
its full and sturdy capitals, the firm, incisive
downstrokes, beautifully turned serifs, and gen-
eral crispness features that make themselves felt
but do not obtrude. Some authorities trace the
origm of this face to S. N. Dickinson, of Boston,
1837, others credit Mrs. Henry Caslon (1796)
with, its origin m her effort to modernize Caslon
old style.
The body stock is Mellotex, sixty-pound basis.
End Sheets: Seventy-pound I wry Intralace
(Rising). Case: Duponfs natural finish linen
cloth, stamped with Black Brighton Metal No.
390 and red ink.
DESIGNED, COMPOSED, ELECTEO-
PLATED, PEINTED, AND BOUND BY
THE PARTHENON PEESS
NASHVILLE, TENNESSEE
124801
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